


let's do the time warp again

by Eclarius



Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Cardfight!! Vanguard G, Cardfight!! Vanguard G: GIRS Crisis, Cardfight!! Vanguard G: Stride Gate, Chaos, Friendship, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Time Loop, there's so much chaos y'all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:29:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26171212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eclarius/pseuds/Eclarius
Summary: In which Tokoha kidnaps a horse, Taiyou hacks NASA, and Chrono accidentally becomes a top student.Both in and not in that order.(AU in which TRY3, Taiyou, Am, and Luna are stuck in a time loop that goes from G Episode 1 to the end of Stride Gate.)
Relationships: AKA the time loop gang, Shindou Chrono & Anjou Tokoha & Kiba Shion & Asukawa Taiyou & Yumizuki Luna & Chouno Am
Comments: 31
Kudos: 34





	1. rinse and repeat

**Author's Note:**

> Hot take: it is absolutely _criminal_ that CFVG introduced Gear Chronicle but didn't bother using time travel as a plot device.
> 
> There are two types of time loop fic: the type where the main characters go crazy trying to save the world (ie. angst galore), and the type where it is just Chaos™.
> 
> Guess what type this is?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that there is a very brief mention of alcohol and drug use in one scene. If you would like to avoid this, please skip the scene beginning with: _“So, what do you want to try this time?” Chrono asked, as he diced another tomato._

It was a normal Tuesday.

Chrono woke up to the sound of his alarm clock, rolled out of bed two minutes later, got dressed, ate breakfast, and left for school.

He stuffed the deck and crudely drawn map from his shoe locker into his school bag as he headed for his classroom, taking his place in the corner seat as usual.

At lunch, he sat by himself on the steps near a side entrance. After lunch, he wrote and submitted an in-class essay.

After school, he followed the map to a nearby card shop called "Card Capital 2", walked in, and witnessed a Fight between Katsuragi Kamui and Anjou Mamoru.

Then, Katsuragi Kamui walked up to him and offered to teach him how to Fight, which he accepted. Chrono won the Fight, impressing the shop regulars, and proceeded to hastily exit the shop.

Next to the entrance of the shop, at the bottom of the staircase, a green-haired girl was waiting for him.

The two of them started walking.

No words were exchanged as they turned street corners in sync, as if being guided by some greater power to a predetermined destination.

They took a left, then a right, then another right. They turned into an alleyway, walked down to the end, before turning into an even smaller alleyway.

It was there that they stopped.

The girl turned to Chrono.

They looked at each other, calmly.

Because like Chrono said, this was a normal Tuesday.

“Chrono,” the girl - Tokoha - began, “the essay today.”

Chrono gave a nod of acknowledgement.

Sighing, Tokoha pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Can you please start writing something other than just the word ‘independence’? You’ve literally had more than 100 years to think about this.”

(Yes, it was a normal Tuesday.)

* * *

Here’s the thing people don’t tell you about time loops:

They get _really_ boring.

Like sure, at first there was Myoujin to worry about. But after they realized that there was literally nothing they could do to get themselves to a point of time past the Stride Gate, they eventually just gave up.

Because what else were they supposed to do? They’d tried everything from telling the adults everything at the very beginning, to destroying all of Myoujin’s facilities on day one, to actually joining Company’s cause.

(Let’s just say that everyone had a _very_ good idea of how to live as a wanted criminal at this point.)

But nothing worked. No matter what they did, the Stride Gate always opened, and as soon as it closed, they always looped back one year to the day that Chrono got his deck.

It also didn’t help that anyone outside the six of them who was told about the time loop almost immediately died a violent, gruesome death.

So, eventually, they just accepted their fate.

After all, acceptance was the final stage of grief, and they had already spent sixty-something years in denial, anger, bargaining, and depression.

But here’s the thing: acceptance is boring.

And boredom meant hobbies.

Shion and Am could probably take over the world at this point, if not from their sheer skill in the stock market, then from the fact that they had both memorized the market patterns for the year.

Taiyou originally taught himself how to hack in order to get into Wakimizu’s systems, but by now he could probably get into any database in the world. Christopher Lo tried to recruit him anywhere from 3 to 47 times every loop.

Tokoha could speak more languages than Google Translate.

If Chrono and Luna opened a restaurant together with Chrono as head chef and Luna as head patissier, they’d probably earn their Michelin stars by the end of the year.

All in all, they still made an effort to try a few new things every loop, just to see if they happen to work out, but no one held out much hope anymore.

This was just their life now.

Rinse and repeat.

(But hey, they still had their fun.)

* * *

“Friends,” Tokoha announced as she walked into the apartment, “I have a proposal.”

Chrono looked up from sorting his deck, as did Am and Luna from their Fight and Taiyou from his homework.

It was Saturday, so they were all hanging out in the apartment today.

In the first loop after the Original Timeline, Shion had decided to rent the apartment - the same one that he had rented after the Ace incident - to act as a base of operations.

That turned out to be a useful idea, so Shion kept renting it loop after loop.

Plus, after they noticed that Taiyou and Luna stayed awfully late considering how far they lived, they found out that they both had very absent parents, both in the emotional and physical sense. So, the apartment turned into a second home for them both, for at least four or five nights a week.

In retrospect, Chrono supposed that that explained how they’d gotten involved with United Sanctuary and Company respectively with no adult intervention. 

“What’s your proposal?” asked Shion, barely glancing up from petting their tabby cat, Pythagoras.

(Yes, it was Shion’s turn this loop to name the cat.)

“You know how it’s almost time for us to instigate revolution at United Sanctuary?”

“Yeah?” Taiyou answered.

For obvious reasons, Taiyou usually took a lead on dealing with the whole situation regarding Kanzaki and United Sanctuary.

“Well, I present to you Operation: Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Dogs of War, Literally.”

Taiyou blinked.

“Okay...?”

Tokoha grinned.

“So, Taiyou,” she started, “you can hack the speakers in the United Sanctuary Branch to get them to play whatever you want, right?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Okay, then here’s what you’re going to do: hack into the speakers and make them play ‘Who Let the Dogs Out’. You know, that early 2000s song by the Baha Men.”

Taiyou nodded slowly as Luna and Am exchanged a confused glance.

“And then,” Tokoha continued, “the rest of us will let 50 dogs loose in the building.”

There was silence.

“50… dogs?” Chrono asked hesitantly.

“Well, as many as we can handle,” Tokoha responded, looking up towards the ceiling thoughtfully, “actually, I guess we could each hold 12 leashes without too much struggle, so maybe we can get 60.”

“But… dogs?”

“I mean, the song is called ‘Who Let the Dogs Out’, so obviously we need to let out dogs.”

“Wait,” Am interjected, “but why would this solve anything? It would just be United Sanctuary Branch, but with dogs.”

Tokoha waved a hand.

“Because dogs solve all problems.”

“By creating new ones?”

“Exactly.”

“So then,” Taiyou said, “in the chaos, I would create an opportunity for Ibuki to steal the Depend Card?”

“Yep,” Tokoha confirmed, “and then that would draw out Kanzaki, Chrono can Fight him, and that’ll be that.”

Shion hummed, considering.

“Well,” he mused, “I suppose that this would be more interesting than the alternative.”

“You mean stealing Kanzaki’s horse?” Luna asked.

“Yeah. It is the most efficient way, but we’ve already done that 23 times. It was getting pretty boring.”

Chrono groaned.

“Please spare my hair for once,” he begged.

“Well,” Am said, “if you guys want, I can start looking into pet shelters and what we can do with the dogs afterwards.”

“I could start looking into transport options,” Shion offered, “but wait, Tokoha, did you think of this because - ”

Shion stopped, and then gave Tokoha an unimpressed look.

“Of course you did,” he deadpanned.

“What do you mean?” Chrono asked.

Shion rolled his eyes as Tokoha blinked innocently.

“Their staff are called Dog Trainers, aren’t they? Isn’t this their job?”

* * *

Groupchat: how do you do, fellow teens 

_04:23_

**smol sun boi:** GUYS

 **smol sun boi:** _i’m in_

 **Polywhirl:** oh no

 **Sailor Moon:** oh no

 **Sailor Mercury:** oh no

 **tokohahaha:** oh no

 **Machiavelli 2.0:** Taiyou… do we need to have a talk about hacking into government databases again?

 **Machiavelli 2.0:** We don’t have enough money to pay off the Americans

 **smol sun boi:** don’t worry, i didn’t hack the fbi

 **smol sun boi:** and i have a good reason this time

 **Sailor Moon:** Taiyou, the last time you said that, you hacked the American government to see who really killed JFK

 **tokohahaha:** and the time before that, you hacked NASA to figure out whether or not aliens were real

 **tokohahaha:** WHAT DID YOU THINK CRAY WAS?

 **smol sun boi:** ok but we found out it wasn’t lee harvey oswald so it was w o r t h i t

 **Machiavelli 2.0:** Taiyou, I had to pay the American government 2 billion USD for your continued freedom

 **Machiavelli 2.0:** It was not worth it

 **smol sun boi:** but at least now we know

 **Sailor Mercury:** anyway, what did you hack this time

 **Sailor Mercury:** just so Shion and I know how much bail we’ll need to prepare

 **smol sun boi:** the UN

 **Sailor Mercury:** ...why

 **smol sun boi:** i needed to know if the illuminati was real

 **tokohahaha:**...taiyou, don’t you think that if the illuminati were real, they would have recruited us by now?

* * *

“So, what do you want to try this time?” Chrono asked, as he diced another tomato.

Luna stopped folding her cake batter and tapped her chin.

“Maybe we could sneak into a GIRS facility again?”

“I mean,” Chrono replied, “we’ve tried that 7 times already and nothing's happened, so maybe we should move on.”

At this point, everyone had figured that if any could get them out of this mess, it had to be Luna or Chrono.

After all, they were stuck in a time loop that had occurred after Myoujin formed a connection with Cray using the Gear Chronicle clan. Who else would be able to fix this other than the Peacemaker and the Gear Chronicle Singularity?

Once again, it had somehow come to Luna or Chrono to save the world.

“Do you figure it’s time we try something a little riskier again?” Luna suggested, scrapping her batter into a cake pan.

This had become their weekend ritual: make dinner for their friends, and discuss various (and sometimes very illegal) ideas that could possibly save the world.

“Like what, hard drugs? Shion said that he could get some for us but I’m not too sure I really want to be a drug addict,” Chrono said.

“No, I was thinking we could try more alcohol.”

“We already know that we’re both lightweights who pass out after two drinks. Besides, it takes too much effort to hide that from the adults.”

“To be fair, we are mentally of age.”

Yeah, it sure got tiring being over 100 years old but trapped in a teenage body.

“Maybe we can try skydiving?” Chrono suggested.

“But why would that connect us more to Cray?” Luna countered.

“The fight-or-flight response or something?”

“Then why can’t we try climbing Mount Everest?”

“I don’t know how you expect to channel your Stride Force when you’re half-frozen and barely able to breathe, but be my guest.”

“What about a near-death experience?”

Chrono looked at Luna incredulously.

“Do you want Am to kill me?”

“Emphasis on ‘near’.”

“She would still kill me.”

Luna huffed.

They both sighed.

“Okay,” Chrono said, “what if we tried meditation? We’ve only done that twice and it had a bit of potential.”

“Sure, why not,” Luna agreed.

“I mean hey, anything is better than lobotomy.”

* * *

Shion and Am came back wearing identical grins.

That was never a good sign.

At least, that was never a good sign for their enemies. Or world peace.

Honestly, Chrono didn’t really know how it happened, but at some point in the first few loops, Shion and Am became best friends.

Or rather, co-conspirators plotting world domination.

It all started simply enough - they needed money.

Apparently, rich heirs usually had investment portfolios, so Shion offered to start pulling his assets from long-term investments into stock trading. 

Then, Am offered to help.

Up until that point, the two of them had had an uneasy truce. Shion had been frigid to Am, whereas she had been endlessly apologetic.

But after that, suddenly they spent all their days pulling out their phones in sync at seemingly random times, having heated debates at 4am over complicated-looking graphs, and grinning maniacally at spreadsheets.

By the end of the loop, Shion and Am got along like a house on fire.

(That is, if the house in question were the Tokyo Stock Exchange.)

Shion still controlled the majority of their portfolio, but with their combined efforts, the two of them easily made enough in the first three months of each loop to afford Am’s parents’ hospital bills, fund most of Taiyou’s pet projects, and pay the rent of the apartment for the entire year with enough extra to make the landlord look the other way.

If they ever got out of this mess, Shion and Am were going to rule the world. Or start a cult. Or possibly both, because what else were they going to do with all their charisma and intellect?

From across the room, Tokoha sighed.

“What did you two do this time?” she asked, “you’re back way later than usual.”

“Hey, humiliating Shion in front of business executives and officially betraying Company is hard, tiring work,” Am retorted, setting down her bag and casually tossing aside her pink Ace wig.

“Well yeah, but normally that takes 8 hours. You guys have been gone for over 14!”

“Today there was an extra step,” Shion offered, setting down a manila file folder on the table, in front of Tokoha.

Tokoha shot him a glare before flipping open the folder.

Then, she immediately snorted.

“Seriously?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Chrono walked over and leaned over Tokoha’s shoulder, as did Taiyou and Luna. 

There it was, on the front page, in big, bold characters:

_KIBA CORPORATION_

_-_

_Kiba Shion, Chief Executive Officer_

Chrono blinked, and then turned over to Shion questioningly.

“How?” he asked, “they think you’re a middle school student.”

“A middle school student who’s made ¥800 000 000 in the last 4 months and successfully defeated a coup.”

“But weren’t you supposed to lose to Am this loop?”

“They think I was in on Shion’s plan,” Am explained.

“So they made you CEO? In 6 hours?”

“The board thinks I’ll be able to provide a fresh outlook on the company’s goals and direction,” Shion recounted.

“Wait,” Taiyou interrupted, “aren’t you and Am the ones who always tell us to keep a low profile and to stick to the Original Timeline whenever possible? Doesn’t this introduce too many variables?”

“Yeah, how are you going to do the G Quests?” Luna chimed in.

Shion waved a hand.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered. I’ll just skip school, I’ve memorized all the exams anyway.”

“But why didn’t you just warn your dad or buy out your company like you usually do?” Chrono questioned, “wouldn’t that be easier than sorting through this mess?”

Shion shrugged.

“I was supposed to inherit this company 80 years ago anyway. Better late than never.”

* * *

“You know, Luna makes a perfectly good pineapple bun,” Tokoha pointed out.

The three members of TRY3 watched as the judges for the Zoo Branch G Quest cooking challenge were hauled away on stretchers after trying Naoki, Shingo, and Luna’s dish.

“Do you figure that Luna is just trying to see how horrible she can make that soup without getting charged for second-degree murder?” Shion speculated.

“Is it even possible to make it that poisonous?” Chrono asked.

“I mean, there’s cherries around here, right? She could smash open the pits and make some sort of cyanide extract.” Tokoha raised.

“That would probably be easier with peach pits,” Shion commented.

“What about raw kidney beans? That would be easier than opening pits.”

“True, but that typically isn’t lethal.”

“I guess they would have checked the quality of any shellfish or meats, and it’s not like they would have puffer fish just lying around.”

“They did provide a couple of kitchen cleaners though, so they could just add that and try to find some way to mask the taste.”

“That’s true.”

“Why are we just casually talking about how to kill people?” Chrono wondered.

* * *

Chrono stared at the final exams rankings.

  1. _Shindou Chrono_



What.

Okay, no, this was not supposed to happen. Chrono was an average student, maybe top third of the grade if he was really pushing it. 

6th place in the grade was definitely not supposed to happen.

Shion had gotten 1st and Tokoha had taken 2nd as usual, but Chrono always ranked somewhere in the high 40s or low 50s.

How had this happened?

Chrono knew that Shion and Tokoha made an effort to calculate which questions they should get wrong in order to maintain the facade that they weren’t taking the same exams for the 100-and-somethingth time.

(The two of them had once played some convoluted version of “The Price is Right” by seeing who could get a score closer to, quote, “exactly 2 standard deviations above the mean”, whatever that meant.)

Anyway, Chrono had never gotten to that point. Sure, his test scores had improved, but he simply stopped paying attention in class, so he still got some questions wrong here and there. He also never reviewed his tests after he got them back, so it’s not like he knew what he was doing right or wrong anyway.

But wow, maybe he had been passively absorbing knowledge this entire time. Even 20th in the grade would have been unthinkable for him in the Original Timeline, but now 6th?

If he hadn’t spent over 100 years in middle school, Chrono would have been proud.

Or, maybe he wouldn’t have been.

Because wow, being a top student was sure annoying.

Teachers actually smiled at him now. Like, on a regular basis. They asked him to carry notebooks to the faculty office, or collect essays for the English assignment. They paid attention to him.

Okay, to be fair, teachers treated Chrono well enough before, but this was just too much.

Teachers started calling on him in class more often than usual, especially for more difficult questions. 

Chrono’s essays and assignments started to be used as exemplars.

One teacher asked Chrono which high school he wanted to apply to, and when Chrono told him that he hadn’t decided yet, the teacher shoved pamphlets for Fukuhara and Miyaji High in his face.

Another teacher asked Chrono to stay behind after class one day to ask if he would be willing to lead a study group.

Apparently his improvement over the past school year was “incredibly impressive” and “could serve as an inspiration to struggling students”.

Even their classmates started to treat him differently.

Sure, they still thought that he was intimidating, but people had started to approach Chrono about their Math homework or for notes for classes that they’d missed.

“That’s Shindou-kun,” Chrono once heard one girl whisper to her friend in the hallway, “he’s really scary, but also super smart.”

All in all, it was a strange life.

Later, when they were lazing around in the apartment, Chrono turned to Tokoha and Shion.

“So, is this just the norm for you guys?” Chrono asked.

Tokoha didn’t even look up from her Social Studies homework.

“What do you mean?”

“You know, teachers actually caring about you. People whispering about you in the hallways. That sort of thing.”

Shion hummed.

“I guess so.”

Chrono sighed. Well, at least this loop was almost over.

Next time, he’d ask Shion and Tokoha for advice on how to make mistakes on tests.

Being a top student wasn’t worth the hassle.

* * *

“You’ve got your deck?”

“Yes.”

“Phone?”

“Yes.”

“Granola bar?”

“I have no idea why you guys always make me bring one, but yes.”

“Tracker?”

“Yes. Stop worrying, it’s not like this is the first time I’m doing this.”

“Fine, fine, okay. I guess you’re all set.”

Smiling brightly, Tokoha clapped Chrono on the shoulder.

“Have fun being kidnapped, Chrono! See you in two days!”

* * *

Groupchat: how do you do, fellow teens

_03:41_

**smol sun boi:** ok but how do we know that history is real?

 **Polywhirl:** taiyou please go to bed

 **Polywhirl:** you’re physically 10yo

 **Sailor Mercury:** if you’re bored, you could always go and rickroll Wakamizu or Ibuki or something

 **smol sun boi:** been there, done that

 **smol sun boi:** it was only interesting the first 10 times

 **smol sun boi:** but how are we sure that the world isn’t controlled by reptilian overlords?

 **_tokohahaha_ ** _set the nickname for_ **_smol sun boi_ ** _to_ **_chaotic sun boi_ **

* * *

“So now we just sit up here and wait?” Chrono asked.

“Yep,” Tokoha answered, “there are less visitors here than there are during the United Sanctuary incident, so Shion can get them all out by himself in the next 2 minutes or so.”

Chrono nodded.

Setting down her transceiver, Tokoha pulled out her phone.

Chrono leaned in to see a map with 7 glowing dots on her screen. He then looked down to the lower level, where the 5 Branch Chiefs, Ibuki, and Mamoru - 7 people total, minus the members of Company - were standing in a matching arrangement in the Dragon Empire Branch lobby.

Wait a minute.

“Did you put tracking devices on them?” he sputtered.

Tokoha shrugged.

“It was Shion’s idea, and they ended up being pretty useful because as soon as everything starts, the whole place gets really smoky.”

“So what, you just slapped a tracker on all of them, like a stalker?”

“Actually, I think Shion figured out a way to make them eat the tracking devices. It’s kinda crazy, about 10 loops ago he and Taiyou designed these tiny trackers together, and then Luna bakes them into cookies.”

“What - how even - why would you - ”

“I’m done,” Shion’s voice interrupted from the transceiver, “all visitors are out of the building, and I am in position.”

“Great, Chrono and I are in position, too,” Tokoha replied.

“Wait, Shion,” Chrono cut in, “did you make all the Branch Chiefs, Ibuki, and Mamoru-san eat tracking devices?”

There was a pause.

“Well, it’s very useful,” Shion justified.

“But isn’t that, I don’t know, immoral?”

“Trust me Chrono, I am one of the most honourable people you will ever meet from the business world. Besides, if it helps us save them all, why would it matter?”

Chrono sighed.

“Fine, you know what? Do whatever. You guys have more experience in the Dragon Empire mission anyway.”

Tokoha patted Chrono’s head.

“Anyway,” she continued, “it looks like it’ll be another minute before it starts. Shion will take care of Ibuki and I’ll go get my brother. Chrono, can you get the Branch Chiefs out? That’s what Luna usually takes care of.”

“Sure.”

“Great, thank you!”

Tokoha flashed Chrono a quick smile before looking up at the ceiling in annoyance.

“Do you figure that beam over there will fall this time? It takes way more effort to get to the exit if it does.”

* * *

“Well, here we are,” Chrono announced, as the six of them stood before the Stride Gate.

“Honestly,” Taiyou complained, “I still can’t believe that this opened on the exact same day as it always does. I literally wrote half of Wakamizu’s programs. How did he take so long to finish this?”

The group collectively sighed.

“You know what,” Tokoha declared, “there’s always next time.”

Literally.

“Well, no point in delaying this any longer,” Shion remarked.

“So," Tokoha began, turning to Shion, "are you ready to get crushed by that boulder?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be."

“Was it my turn to fight the other Peacemaker?” Am asked.

“I think so,” confirmed Luna. 

The group gazed up at the glowing column for a few moments longer.

“So, round 107?”

“Whenever you’re ready.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How are there 4 more chapters to this?
> 
> _Excellent question._


	2. out of loop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, 6 time travelling teenagers, living their best chaotic lives.
> 
> ...did you really think that they were subtle?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: okay, let's do a POV outsider chapter with characters that I never write! Yes, this will definitely be a good idea :)
> 
> (I have no idea if this was a good idea lol)

Like most big brothers, Anjou Mamoru cared a great deal about his little sister.

Despite their 10 year age difference, Tokoha and he had a great relationship.

While Mamoru was happy that Tokoha shared his love of Vanguard, he knew that his success made her feel overshadowed.

He’d thought long and hard about how to get Tokoha to appreciate her skills and achievements as her own, but so far, all he could think of doing was providing his unconditional support.

Then, one day, something changed.

It was as if overnight, Tokoha suddenly became her own person.

While she used to demure or defensive when labelled as “Mamoru’s little sister”, she now shrugged it off effortlessly and seemed genuinely unbothered with the title.

Somehow, her greatest struggle in life was suddenly no big deal.

Now, Mamoru was obviously glad that Tokoha had overcome this challenge, but he had more than a few questions about her radical personality shift.

For starters, how? And why?

Apparently, their parents had noticed this change as well, because the next time he was home, their mom mentioned that Tokoha had been spending time with some new friends lately.

Not _bad_ friends per se, simply _new_.

Presumably, there were two main friends, but Tokoha often mentioned three others as well.

The main friends made a certain amount of sense, Mamoru supposed. They were both Tokoha’s classmates from school. However, one of them was the heir to one of the biggest business conglomerates in Japan, and the other apparently had a reputation for beating people up.

So, not exactly Tokoha’s usual choice of friends.

Her other new friends were a relatively well-known idol, a shy girl who lived on the other side of Tokyo, and a seemingly random elementary schooler.

...where had all of them even met?

Tokoha and her new friends spent a lot of their time in an old apartment building - because apparently rich heirs like to rent out apartments to hang out in - but she still spent a considerable amount of time at Card Capital 2.

Huh.

Perhaps it was time to pay Kamui a visit.

* * *

In retrospect, Katsuragi Kamui thought that the three of them got along _too_ well.

Kamui wouldn’t fancy himself as the most observant person in the world, but he knew a few things:

One, Anjou Tokoha was a social, no-nonsense girl who made friends easily, but didn’t tend to have many close friends.

Two, Kiba Shion was polite and friendly, but preferred acquaintanceship over friendship.

Three, neither of them should get along with Shindou Chrono.

Yet, Chrono was somehow the missing piece that instantly completed their little trio.

The three of them acted like they had been best friends since forever, even though as far as Kamui knew, Tokoha and Shion had barely known each other before Chrono arrived.

It was strange enough that they called each other by their first names - no honorifics - despite only meeting a few weeks ago, but they were also weirdly in sync.

Sure, the three of them were constantly arguing about what to eat for dinner, or which card to switch out in a deck, or what were considered appropriate names for cats (for whatever reason). But, when it came down to it, Kamui had never seen better teamwork and cooperation.

Oh sure, Kamui knew that Tokoha, Shion, and Chrono would make a brilliant team. But he thought that it would at least take a couple of months.

After all, if there was one thing that the three of them had in common, it was a stubborn streak the size of Cray.

But no, they had met mere weeks ago and already had better teamwork than Q4 at its height.

Where was the cold, bitter rivalry? The inferiority complexes and distant team dynamics? The gradual transition from pure hatred to begrudging respect? 

(Yeah, maybe Kamui’s experience in Q4 had skewed his idea of “teambuilding”.)

And that’s not even all that was strange about Tokoha, Shion, and Chrono - or TRY3, as they were apparently called.

For one, while they were always willing to Fight other regulars at Card Capital 2, they almost never played against each other in the shop.

And whenever they did Fight anyone, they do so with measured restraint. Kamui wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t been watching them so closely in the first place, but it was definitely there. 

Even Chrono, who was for all intents and purposes a beginner, seemed to instinctively hover over certain cards before ultimately making a weaker play.

Of course, there were also their three other friends, who occasionally showed up in the shop.

Yumizuki Luna, Chouno Am, and Asukawa Taiyou all seemed like nice kids, but Kamui could not for the life of him figure out how or why they knew each other.

Overall, there was clearly something off about Chrono, Tokoha, and Shion.

Kamui just couldn’t figure out what it was.

And apparently, he wasn’t the only one, because one day Mamoru unexpectedly walked into the shop.

After the customary star-struck crowds that came with being a local celebrity died down, Mamoru turned to Kamui.

“Kamui-kun, have you noticed that Tokoha has been a bit… different lately?”

“She has changed, I would say,” Kamui replied, “ever since she became friends with Shion and Chrono.”

“I’ve noticed that too. It’s not a bad change, per se. She’s just...”

“Different?”

“Yes.”

Kamui hummed, as they continued leaning against the shop’s counter, looking out at the bustling store.

“Honestly, it’s not even just her. Shion has definitely changed too,” Kamui continued.

“Kiba Shion? The heir of the Kiba group?”

“Yeah. You’d think that he’d just be a snobby rich kid, but he’s actually not too bad. He used to be a little out of touch with reality, but now he’s just…”

“Just…?”

“Just… how should I put this… I can’t explain why, but he kinda gives off mafia boss vibes.”

“My sister’s new best friend gives off mafia boss vibes.”

“Yes.”

“...”

“...but not in a bad way. He’s a nice kid, I swear.”

* * *

It’s not every day you go to work only to see your sister just outside the Branch, casually attempting to coax a horse into a cage using nothing but her best friend’s hair.

Wearily, Mamoru walked up to Tokoha.

“Tokoha… what are you doing?” 

“Oh, hi onii-chan!” she chirped, “nothing much, just helping out with an initiative.”

Tokoha was literally making jazz hands at Chrono’s bangs.

“Initiative…?”

“Yep,” Tokoha nodded, walking backwards as she continued to direct the horse’s attention towards Chrono, “we heard that the United Sanctuary Branch is running a very unethical program, so we’re trying to help stop it.”

Mamoru blinked.

“That’s great, but what does that have to do with the horse?”

“Oh, we needed something to get their attention.”

“With a horse?”

“Yep, the Branch Chief loves his horses. Plus, apparently this horse can walk vertically up buildings, so we also wanted to investigate its physics-defying abilities.”

Chrono scoffed.

“I told you, it has to be magnetic horseshoes!” he exclaimed, jumping away just before the horse could chomp down on his bangs.

Tokoha rolled her eyes.

“Shion and I have told you a million times that that’s physically impossible. Do you know how much power the horse would have to generate for it to be able to overcome the magnetic force needed to stand on the side of a building? Plus, Taiyou already checked, this horse doesn’t even wear horseshoes.”

“So what are you saying, that this is a magical horse?”

“That’s more plausible than magnetic horseshoes!”

Mamoru watched as the two continued arguing as they led the horse fully out into the cage.

Chrono fluidly dodged another swipe at his hair without missing a beat in his counterpoint. 

Mamoru was about to ask another question before a bellowing voice suddenly erupted behind him.

“ANJOU TOKOHA! SHINDOU CHRONO!”

Mamoru spun around to see the United Sanctuary Branch Chief, Kanzaki Yuuichirou, charging straight towards them.

He was on horseback. 

In the middle of Tokyo.

From somewhere behind him, Mamoru heard Tokoha let out a small sigh.

“Finally,” she grumbled.

* * *

For a number of reasons, Ibuki Kouji was suspicious of many things.

Offers of overwhelming power, entities claiming to be the savior of the world, et cetera.

So, when a message suddenly popped up on his computer screen that read, “A good opportunity: 10:15 AM tomorrow”, he was obviously skeptical.

A good opportunity for what?

(There was obviously the Depend Card, but no one should know about Ibuki’s involvement with that.)

Was it a trap?

With no way of tracing where the message had come from, Ibuki resigned to just doing nothing.

After all, what could possibly happen tomorrow?

(Oh, he had no idea.)

At 9:07 AM, Kanzaki proclaimed that his prized horse was missing, and that two teenagers named “Anjou Tokoha” and “Shindou Chrono” had apparently kidnapped it.

Yes, kidnapped. 

They’d left a ransom note.

With that, Kanzaki stormed out of the building on his other horse, headed towards the Dragon Empire Branch to confront Tokoha and Chrono.

That left Ibuki in a state of extreme confusion because first of all, why would the Gear Chronicle Singularity decide to blackmail the Branch Chief of the United Sanctuary Branch?

(Of course, there was _that_ reason, but Chrono definitely shouldn’t know about it.)

Second of all, why a horse?

Ibuki barely had any time to consider these questions before a Dog Trainer ran into his office at 9:23 AM to tell him that four teenagers had invaded the lobby of the Branch and were defeating each and every Fighter in their way.

Apparently, at this rate, they would have to alert Team Demise in the next 20 minutes because they were literally going to run out of Fighters.

Ibuki pulled up the security feed to see four teenagers, who - according to Ibuki’s investigations - were all associated with Chrono.

Fantastic.

From there, it was just utter chaos.

One of the intruders had apparently gotten into the security system, and proceeded to shut down all the elevators and ramps in the building, so that no one could get anywhere. 

In fact, the only electronics that seemed to work in the building were the lights, the clocks, and the speakers - which were all blaring Smashmouth’s All Star on repeat.

(Ibuki had tried to turn it off, but ten seconds after the blissful silence, Rick Astley’s Never Going to Give You Up started playing.)

If that wasn’t enough, Kanzaki arrived back at 9:56 AM to inform Ibuki that he would be Fighting Shindou Chrono in the main stadium, and that all members of the United Sanctuary Branch were to attend.

Strangely enough, as soon as Kanzaki entered the building, the elevators and ramps began operating again, and the speakers went silent. Everyone was able to make it into the main stadium without too much hassle.

However, in the mess, no one knew where the four intruders had disappeared off to.

At 10:11 AM, the match between Kanzaki and Chrono began.

At 10:12 AM, Ibuki made his way down to the lab that housed the Depend Card.

Because if anything, this was a great opportunity to steal the Depend Card while Kanzaki was distracted.

Besides, this day was crazy enough that Ibuki might actually start believing in miracles.

At 10:15 AM, he walked into the lab.

All the scientists were sprawled out on the ground, unconscious. The monitors all displayed the words “error: no data found”, and all the security cameras had been destroyed. Papers were strewn throughout the room, but there was no one else in sight.

And there, in the middle of the lab, was the Depend Card.

Untouched and unguarded.

Huh.

* * *

“So, your sister kidnapped Kanzaki’s horse - ”

“I know.”

“ - and held it for ransom so that Kanzaki would agree to Fight Chrono in front of everyone at the United Sanctuary Branch - ”

“I know.”

“ - while her friends stormed the building - ”

“I know.”

“ - in order to get Kanzaki to resign as Branch Chief - ”

“I know.”

“ - and it _worked_.”

“Yes, Kamui-kun. _I know_.”

* * *

“Ibuki-kun! Is what you said back there true?”

“...”

“Even now, Myoujin is the honorary president of the Association. Although I heard he’s retired and has little to do with day-to-day operations.”

“I know.”

“I figured you would. You joined the Association to get close to Myoujin.”

“And if I did?”

“Are you saying the Association is complicit in that ‘ambition’?”

“If you’re interested, you should check it out for yourself. Although I can’t guarantee your safety.”

With that, Ibuki once again began walking away.

“Wait, Ibuki-kun! One more thing.”

He stopped and turned back towards Mamoru.

“Have you noticed anything… strange about Tokoha, Chrono, and Shion? Or the rest of their friends?”

Ibuki blinked.

“They kidnapped Kanzaki’s horse in order to coerce him into resigning. Of course I noticed something strange.”

(Not to mention… did they know about the significance of the Depend Card before today? Their disappearance during the match couldn’t have been a mere coincidence, could it? But then, why did Chrono’s Fight show no mal intent?)

Mamoru sighed.

“I wouldn’t suppose you know why they did that? Or how they came up with the idea?”

Ibuki slowly shook his head.

“Well,” Mamoru said, clapping his hands together, “if you ever need to talk about them with someone sane, Kamui-kun and I are here for you.”

* * *

The G Quests seemed to be going relatively normally.

Sure, the fact that TRY3 were friends with both members of Rummy Labyrinth months before they had even formed and were also dominating the G Quests was a strange coincidence, but Kamui wasn’t too surprised about it.

After all, defeating Leon, Chris, Daigo, and Ren’s AL4 was no small feat, but Kamui knew first-hand that TRY3 was very good.

He’d almost stopped thinking about their strange behaviour when one day, Iwakura showed up at Card Capital 2, with no sign of Shion.

“Uh,” Kamui said hesitantly, as he walked up to the butler, who seemed remarkably at ease amongst the crowds of excitable elementary schoolers, “how may I help you, sir?”

“Ah, Katsuragi-san. I just wanted to inquire about the young master. Have you noticed any changes in his behaviour as of late?”

Kamui blinked.

“I guess so? Nothing too big. He and his friends did do something crazy at the United Sanctuary Branch a month ago, but he seems pretty normal lately. Why, did something happen?”

Iwakura sighed.

“The young master’s uncle attempted to oust his father from his position as the head of the Kiba Corporation a few weeks ago. The young master was able to prevent this from occurring.”

Kamui tilted his head questioningly.

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Yes, but he accomplished this by buying 51% of the company’s shares and giving ownership back to his father.”

Wait.

“Sorry, I don’t know too much about business, but wouldn’t that cost… a lot of money?”

Iwakura looked even more resigned than before.

“Indeed it would. Over ¥90 billion, in fact.”

Kamui’s eyes widened more than he thought possible.

“Where did Shion get that much money?”

“That is what his parents and I are trying to find out. We investigated his investment portfolio and found that he managed to make at least that much money in the last few months through stock trading.”

Sure, Kamui supposed it was totally normal for heirs of large corporations to have investment portfolios. But more importantly - 

“Woah, is Shion that good?”

“The young master has a brilliant mind for business, but earning this much from stock trading alone in such a short time frame is highly improbable. As well, it is quite unlike him to suddenly put so many of his resources into liquid assets. I worry if some outside influence has caused him to do this.”

Ah, that’s what this was about.

Kamui contemplated for a second.

“Well,” he began slowly, “his friends here all seem like good people. Tokoha and Chrono are good kids, and his other friends don’t seem like the type to get involved in the type of things you’re thinking of.”

Iwakura let out another sigh.

“Thank you for taking the time to speak to me, Katsuragi-san. Have a great day.”

“No problem, you too. Good luck!”

With that, Iwakura left.

Wait.

So.

Had Kamui been on the right track this whole time?

Was Kiba Shion… actually a mafia boss?

* * *

As Ibuki walked away from Tokoha and Shion after confronting Shinonome in the back halls of the Ultimate Stage venue, he could faintly make out a few sentences of their conversation.

“Why do you always commit so much to this?” Tokoha asked.

“You know perfectly well that this is the highlight of my year.” Shion replied.

* * *

Mamoru never purposefully looked through any of Tokoha’s belongings, but he couldn’t help but pause to read a scrap of paper that she had thrown away.

_Shopping List:_

  * _Cat litter_


  * _Eggs_


  * _Tomatoes_


  * _Celery_


  * _Granola bars (for Chrono)_



_...but wait, wouldn’t it be easier to just kidnap the_ **_actual child_ ** _?_

  * _Ask Shion and Taiyou about tranquilizers_



Honestly, Mamoru was at a bit of a loss about this whole Myoujin mess.

On one hand, he didn’t want Tokoha anywhere near this potentially dangerous situation.

But on the other hand, could he realistically stop her?

* * *

Ibuki was tackled to the ground in a flash of black and gray mere moments before Chronobeat Buffalo could slam into him.

He blinked up to find Kiba Shion’s blond hair falling in his face.

What.

“Hello Ibuki-san,” Shion muttered, eyes quickly darting to the side, “let me just - ”

With that, he grabbed Ibuki’s lapels and rolled them both to the right, barely missing a large piece of falling debris.

“Why are you…?”

“Oh, Tokoha, Luna, and I were upstairs, but we didn’t want to call attention to ourselves unless absolutely necessary,” Shion answered, now crouched but continuing to scan around, “but at this point, we’re definitely beyond that.”

He offered Ibuki a hand and pulled him up.

Dusting himself off, Shion squinted at an exit.

“That way is probably still clear. We should hurry over before more debris falls.”

Ibuki shook his head.

“You should go, but I’m not leaving without everyone else.”

Shion waved a hand.

“Don’t worry about it, Tokoha went after her brother and Luna should have all the Branch Chiefs out by now.”

He then looked up at the ceiling.

“Besides,” he continued in a matter-of-fact tone, “if we don’t leave in the next 20 seconds or so, that beam will fall and someone will have to come rescue us.”

Shion then grabbed Ibuki’s sleeve and started dragging him towards the exit with a surprising amount of strength.

Just as they exited the building, Shion suddenly turned.

“Oh, by the way,” he began, very casually, “Myoujin kidnapped Chrono. But don’t worry - ”

Shion rummaged around his jacket for a few seconds before pulling out a small tracking monitor.

“ - he’s wearing 3 trackers.”

* * *

Chrono checked the clock for the fourth time in the last 20 minutes.

Luna and Taiyou looked up a few seconds afterwards, too.

Kamui watched as TRY3, along with their three other friends, made a good show at Fighting each other while checking the time almost every other minute.

They’d been at this for the last three hours.

Kamui had asked them what they were waiting for, but none of them had given a more specific answer than “a phone call”.

Why was this call so important, and why did all six of them need to wait for it together? Clearly, Kamui was not going to be getting answers any time soon.

Suddenly, Chrono’s phone rang.

They all startled, and then immediately glanced back up at the clock, almost perfectly in sync.

Then, they all turned to Chrono, who pulled out his phone and answered the call.

He listened for a few seconds, then wearily gave his friends a nod.

Besides Chrono, they all let out a loud sigh.

“Seriously?” Kamui heard Tokoha mutter.

“Why are they like this,” Taiyou groaned.

“Here we go again,” Am grumbled.

What was happening again?

Kamui knew better than to ask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can probably tell, I know literally 0 things about the stock market
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. the bucket list

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're 6 semi-immortal teenagers.
> 
> What did you think they'd do?

As actual time travelers, Chrono knew that they faced weird problems.

But this… this had to be the weirdest one yet.

“So,” Am declared, clapping her hands together, “we have too much money.”

Everyone stared at her, besides Shion, who simply gave a nod of agreement.

Tokoha opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“We literally have too much money,” Am repeated, “Shion and I were experimenting, and long story short, we can now probably afford to buy a small European country.”

“And this is a problem because…?”

“We have to be good global citizens and contribute to the economy,” Shion explained, “so we should spend the money on something.”

“Why don’t you just donate all the leftover money to a random charity, like you usually do at the end of every loop?” Taiyou pointed out.

Shion and Am exchanged a glance.

“Well, we figured that we could do something more interesting,” Am said, shrugging, “since we do have all the time in the world.”

“Like what?” Chrono asked.

Am smiled.

“Have you guys ever heard of bucket lists?”

* * *

The idea was simple.

They divided the longest wall in the apartment down the middle with a strip of masking tape, and hung a sign that read “To-Do” on one side and “Complete” on the other.

Next to the wall sat a bucket of sticky notes and Sharpies.

Whenever anyone came up with something that they’d really like to do, they wrote it on a sticky note and added it to the “To-Do” wall. Then, when the task was complete, they would move the sticky note to the “Complete” wall.

Simple.

Sure, it probably wasn’t the most productive use of their time and money, nor did it help with solving the time loop. But hey, they’d been at this for over 100 years, okay? They deserved a vacation.

Besides, wouldn’t it be a waste of their essentially infinite youth if they didn’t spend at least some of it living life to the fullest?

So, here they were.

Six bored and semi-immortal teenage billionaires, spending their year trying to live out their dream.

What could possibly go wrong?

* * *

“Luna, did you just adopt 7 dogs?”

The girl in question ignored Chrono in favour of adjusting the leash attached to her new corgi.

“Seriously, you live in a 800-square-foot apartment, and we already have Fluffy.”

(Yeah, Taiyou was _really_ bad at naming the cat.)

Luna suddenly looked up.

“Right, I need to add ‘buy a mansion for the dogs’ to the list,” she muttered to herself.

* * *

Chrono had just finished setting the table when he heard the door open.

He made it over to the entrance of their apartment just in time to see Mikuru put away her shoes.

“Hi Chrono,” Mikuru greeted cheerily, “I didn’t know you’d be home early today!”

“Welcome home, Mikuru-san,” Chrono answered, “how was work?”

“Oh, it was the usual,” she replied, walking into the apartment, “phone calls, emails, meetings, not too busy but - ”

She trailed off as she caught sight of their living room.

“Chrono... what’s this?”

Chrono smiled.

“Happy birthday, Mikuru-san!”

The living room walls were decorated with streamers and balloons. Off to the side, their little dining table was crowded with Mikuru’s favourites, from pasta to grilled salmon to tonkatsu. At the center of a table sat an white-frosted cake, with “Happy birthday Mikuru-san!” written in elegant chocolate lettering.

“Thank you for all these years that you’ve supported me,” Chrono said, “please take this is a token of my appreciation.”

“Oh, Chrono, I… how did you even manage to do this?”

“Well, I used my winnings from the tournament - ”

(Did Chrono purposefully tell Mikuru about his newfound interest in Vanguard as early as possible, and then drag Tokoha and Shion to a tournament, just to be able to use this excuse? Yes, yes he did.)

“ - and I also had some help,” Chrono explained, indicating to the kitchen.

Tokoha, Shion, and Luna waved from behind the counter.

“You’ve already met Tokoha and Shion, and this is my friend Luna. She helped with the cake.”

Turning back around, Chrono continued.

“I’m sorry that I never got the chance to do this before, but I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate your - ”

Chrono was abruptly cut off by Mikuru tackling him with a hug, sobbing into his shoulder.

He awkwardly patted her back.

Well, guess he can move “show my appreciation for Mikuru-san” to the other side of the wall now.

Out of the corner of his eye, Chrono saw Tokoha lean over to whisper in Shion’s ear as she, Shion, and Luna stealthily made their way out of the room.

“How is he always so wholesome?”

* * *

“I have good news,” Taiyou declared, as he and Shion walked into the apartment.

“About what?” Chrono asked.

“Remember how I wanted to hack Google?”

Chrono nodded.

“Well, I got caught.”

“...and how is that good news?” Tokoha questioned from the other side of the room, voicing Chrono’s thoughts.

“Because they hired me.”

Uh.

“They… hired you. For hacking them,” Chrono repeated.

“Yes. Apparently they were really interested in how I got into their systems, so they dropped all charges against me in exchange for a thorough explanation of my algorithms and for me to work for them.”

Sure… that made sense.

“So then, you’re moving to California?”

“Not moving, they did say that I can continue to go to school. Shion and I will just fly over once or twice a month.”

Wait.

“...Shion?”

“Oh yeah, they hired him too.”

“...why?”

“Taiyou asked me to attend his meeting with the Google executives to help with the legal settlement,” Shion answered, “however, once they found out who I was, they hired me for their Finance department.”

“On the spot?”

“Am and I did make ¥1 700 000 000 in two weeks. The business world has been quite interested in us.”

“We get a dozen or so job offers from stock brokers every week,” added Am, giving the first indication that she had been paying attention to anything beyond her spreadsheets, “anywhere from paid internships to full-time jobs on Wall Street.”

“I figured that working for Google would at least be an interesting experience, so I took it,” Shion concluded.

Am nodded approvingly, either at Shion or the spreadsheets. Chrono honestly couldn’t tell.

“Wait, to clarify, you two got actual, paying jobs,” Tokoha reiterated.

“Yes.”

“...didn’t you tell us to spend money, not to make more?”

* * *

Chrono had never seen so much food in his life.

Seriously, thank god this was a sturdy table, because just the sheer amount of porcelain on it probably weighed more than Chrono soaking wet.

“Did you guys order everything on the menu or something?” Chrono asked, still trying to process the number of bowls and plates that were currently crammed between Tokoha, Luna, and himself.

“Yep,” Tokoha answered, matter-of-factly, “if we’re going to do a restaurant review, we’re obviously going to be thorough. And don’t worry, we called ahead and brought enough money to tip a solid 200%.”

“And we’re going to get all the extra food to-go, so we can eat them as leftovers for the next few days,” Luna added.

“Right, because we might be teenage billionaires, but we’re respectful and responsible teenage billionaires.”

Luna nodded sagely.

“So, what exactly was the point of this again?” asked Chrono, not for the first time in the past hour.

Between the six of them, Tokoha and Luna probably had the most stereotypical bucket list entries.

(Normal people didn’t put “reconcile with my deadbeat dad, maybe” or “ensure that Shinonome Shouma rots in hell” on their bucket lists, did they?)

Sections of the “To-Do” wall were covered with “visit Paris” and “try authentic Italian pizza” in Tokoha’s bubbly handwriting, whereas Luna had a corner dedicated to entries such as “go skydiving” or “pet a llama”.

However, there were some unintended consequences.

For example, Tokoha and Luna currently had a combined total of over 3 000 000 Instagram followers.

Apparently, a lot of people liked photos of exotic food and popular travel destinations. Especially when they featured young, rich teenagers.

“I mean, some people call us ‘rich, spoiled brats’,” Tokoha had said when Chrono first asked her about it, “which is definitely true, but apparently a lot of people actually look up to us as ‘influencers’ now.”

“Isn’t that… a little problematic? In terms of societal and cultural norms?”

“Yes, very. But hey, we’re semi-responsible ‘teenagers’, might as well have fun and try to do some good for the world if we have the power to, right?”

And so, Tokoha and Luna became social media influencers.

Which led Chrono to today, where he found himself sitting across from Tokoha and Luna with enough food between them to feed a small army.

“We’re going to try every dish in this restaurant, and you’re going to film us,” Tokoha explained, pointing at the DSLR camera that she had shoved into Chrono’s hands upon entering the restaurant.

“Oh, and of course you get to eat the food too!” Luna tagged on.

“...why me?”

“Well, Shion is spending the week trying his hand at venture capitalism, Am is off scamming pyramid schemers, and the last I checked Taiyou was still trying to beat the world record for the highest Tetris score,” Tokoha listed off, “besides, you actually cook, so you’re more capable of reviewing these dishes anyway.”

“Wasn’t I just supposed to film?”

“I mean, you’re also our culinary expert. It’s not like I can remember the difference between a sear and a reverse sear.”

“Tokoha, we’re at a noodle bar. Those are different ways to cook steak.”

“My point exactly.”

Chrono sighed.

“Okay, so I film, try some of this food, and occasionally provide commentary. Anything else?”

“Nope, we’ll just give the footage to Taiyou for him to edit and then post it on YouTube.” 

“Wait, you two are starting a YouTube channel now?”

“I mean hey, vlogging sounds fun and a lot of people seem to like our food reviews on Instagram, so this was the natural next step.”

“Besides,” Luna said, “we’ll show kids that doing stuff like this requires research, preparation, and being courteous to the restaurant staff. We have the responsibility to be positive influencers!”

“So you’re essentially living out your idol career as a food critic?”

“Pretty much, yes.”

“Anyway,” Tokoha interrupted, “we should get started if we want to finish this before the dinner rush. Ready, Chrono?”

Chrono rolled his eyes, set up the camera, and started recording.

“Let’s get this over with.”

* * *

Groupchat: all I want for christmas is to graduate from middle school, dammit 

_21:18_

**chaotic good child:** _[Video attached (1:07)]_

 **Moonshine:** did… did Taiyou just build a functional AI?

 **Minister of Finance:** Yes, I can confirm that he just did.

 **Minister of Finance:** In the Google Headquarters. At 5am. On 9 cans of Red Bull.

 **Minister of Finance:** (Yes, I tried to stop him.)

 **reluctant cinnamon roll:** sigh.

 **reluctant cinnamon roll:** the Skynet kind or the Jarvis kind?

 **Minister of Finance:** It’s pretty similar to Jarvis, actually.

 **chaotic good child:** _HER_ name is Celeste, thank you very much

 **bloom bloom pow:** that… is surprisingly not a bad name

 **Butterfree:** so when can we expect the Iron Man suit

 **chaotic good child:** s o o n

 **bloom bloom pow:** ok who encouraged taiyou to learn how to code

 **bloom bloom pow:** he has too much power

 **bloom bloom pow:** _wait_

 **bloom bloom pow:** _guys_

 **bloom bloom pow:** _there’s 6 of us_

 **bloom bloom pow:** _we could be the avengers_

 **reluctant cinnamon roll:** ...are you sure you want to add “save New York from an alien invasion” to your bucket list?

* * *

“Do you guys have ‘astronaut dreams’?” Tokoha asked one day, apropos to nothing.

“Like, dreams about astronauts?” Taiyou wondered.

“No, like a dream or goal that is theoretically possible, but not something that the average person could achieve. Like being an astronaut, for example. So, not so much a bucket list item rather than your ultimate life goal.”

Shion hummed.

“I guess mine would be winning the Nobel Prize,” he said.

Tokoha raised an eyebrow.

“Wow, what do you want? The Nobel Peace Prize?”

“Of course.”

“They give those out to people who _promote_ world peace, Shion.”

“I want to found a tech start-up!” Taiyou chimed in, “and maybe find an efficient source of clean energy.”

“See, that’s the type of idea that deserves the Nobel Prize. What about you, Luna?”

“I want to go on a tour and perform with Am all around the world!”

Am tapped her chin thoughtfully.

“Well, that’s actually pretty possible,” she mused, “Rummy Labyrinth was doing well enough in the Original Timeline that we probably could have gone on a world tour in the next year or two.”

“Really?” Luna exclaimed.

“That’s something to look forward to!” Tokoha commented, before turning to Chrono, “what about you, Chrono?”

Chrono considered for a moment.

“Maybe… to visit Cray?”

Tokoha stared at him.

“Chrono… is your ‘astronaut dream’ literally to become an astronaut?”

* * *

When all material objects only last a year, normal birthday presents become pretty useless.

Sure, they still had birthday parties, but instead of presents, they tended to just give each other favours or promises.

(Chrono wasn’t sure what Shion was planning to do with Taiyou’s promise from over 30 loops ago to build him any computer program he wanted, but Chrono was reasonably sure that world order would suffer.)

That’s why when Am said she was shopping for Luna’s birthday present, Chrono was immediately confused.

Only Am and Chrono were in the apartment today. Luna and Tokoha had made a weekend trip to New York City to try the most expensive ice-cream sundae in the world (not for a video, thankfully), and Shion and Taiyou were off in California.

Chrono had been on his way to the kitchen when he caught sight of Am’s laptop screen.

_LunarLand.com_

“Am, what are you doing?”

“Buying Luna’s birthday present,” she replied distractedly.

“And what would that be?”

“The moon.”

What.

“...the moon?”

Am gave no response other than a nod, continuing to scroll through the webpage.

Uh.

“How can you buy the moon?”

“Oh, it’s actually pretty interesting! Apparently, the UN Outer Space Treaty of 1967 only says that governments can’t own property in outer space, but it didn’t say anything about individuals or corporations. Therefore, literally anyone can buy the moon.”

“So, you want to buy Luna the moon for her birthday?”

“I mean, why wouldn’t I? She’s Luna.”

“Meaning, you’re doing this because her name is Luna? Or was this on your bucket list? Or, is it because Luna ‘deserves the sun, the stars, and the moon’?”

Am blinked.

“Yes.”

“...fair enough, carry on.”

* * *

_Dear Mr. Kiba,_

_On behalf of the admissions committee, it is my pleasure to offer you admission to the Harvard College Class of 20XX. You stood out as one of the most promising and talented candidates in one of the most competitive applicant pools in the history of the college. Your commitment to personal excellence and principled goals has convinced us that you will both contribute to our diverse community and thrive within our academic environment._

_You have until May 1, 20XX to let us know if you’ll call Harvard home for the next four years. Until then, we look forward to…_

Chrono snorted before sending a picture of the letter to Shion and moving the “get into Harvard” sticky note onto the “Complete” wall, right under “get into MIT”.

* * *

Tokoha + Luna @ The ULTIMATE Brunch Spot

3,193,492 views

4,811 Comments

**Carrie Val** 3 days ago

Perfectly good food: *exists*

No one:

Literally not a single soul:

Tokoha: You know what this needs?

Tokoha: cRoQuEtTeS

> **Puddles** 2 days ago
> 
> #CroquetteCult rise up

**Takahashi Ryosuke** 18 hours ago

fjckjspkxifn how much money did they spend on this

that much food could feed my whole family for a week

> **Oct8pus** 18 hours ago
> 
> WHERE ARE THEIR PARENTS???
> 
> **Sen~** 7 hours ago
> 
> They literally buy entire menus every other week and have never taken a sponsorship.
> 
> How.
> 
> **Toto** 3 hours ago
> 
> We all know that they’re both chaotic as hell, but can we all stop and appreciate the fact that Tokoha and Luna are genuinely nice people? Like, they’re always so polite to the restaurant staff and anyone who approaches them, and they never attack their haters.
> 
> It’s so rare to see trust-fund babies who aren’t self-entitled assholes.

**Megaloid** 1 day ago

8:28 a wild Chrono appears!

> **dexter** 23 hours ago
> 
> tbh i only watch this channel for chrono
> 
> **Megaloid** 23 hours ago
> 
> SAME haha
> 
> **lando guy** 20 hours ago
> 
> he’s so relatable like “what are we doing here. Why are we doing this.”
> 
> and then he’s the one who actually has the most opinions about food lol
> 
> **Tigress** 15 hours ago
> 
> Tokoha Luna if y’all are reading this… pls feed Chrono more, he’s suffering for you

* * *

To no one’s surprise, the Stride Gate opened on the same day it always does, despite none of them ever coming in contact with Myoujin.

The six of them stared up at the glowing pillar for what felt like the 149293th time.

“Well, that was fun,” Tokoha began.

“Yeah,” Luna agreed, “I wish it could have been longer though.”

“Right? I really wanted to go abroad and study in France, but we didn’t have enough time.”

“And I wanted to open a bakery!”

“I want to hack Facebook,” Taiyou tagged on, “I heard they have a better company culture.”

Shion and Am exchanged a look and before shrugging at each other.

“Well,” Shion remarked, “Am and I could always do this again.”

“Yeah,” Am added, “it’s fun to think of ways to make a ridiculous amount of money.”

“So then, can we do this every 10 loops or so?” Tokoha proposed.

“I don’t see why not,” Shion replied.

“Nice! So that works out to be about 5 weeks of paid vacation per year. Not horrible, but you’d think we’d get better benefits as the literal defenders of the free world.”

“It’s more like 7 weeks if you count the weekends.”

“Eh, semantics.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed my chaos menagerie! I had _so_ much fun writing this chapter tbh
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	4. all hail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [If I had to pick a song to describe this chapter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YWg-H_Dt04)

When Kiba Shion first walked into the United Sanctuary Branch, Ibuki thought nothing of it.

He passed the normal background check: Royal Paladin player, 2nd year student at a local middle school, never entered any major tournaments, seemed to have no connections to Myoujin Ryuzu. 

Sure, he was the Kiba family heir, but that was the most interesting fact about him.

The boy looked almost delicate, with innocent blue eyes and an unassuming smile.

So Ibuki didn’t give Kiba Shion a second glance. Not until he started climbing the rankings faster than the databases could keep up.

He had only been there for a few days, but if he kept up his pace, then he would be qualified to join Team Demise by the end of next week. 

Not only that, but for the first time since Kanzaki took over as Branch Chief of the United Sanctuary Branch, the Branch actually had a net loss in Fighters in the past week.

Kanzaki himself probably didn’t even notice. The man cared about strength above all, so a couple of “weak” Fighters leaving the Branch wouldn’t bother him. Not when such a strong one had joined.

But Ibuki noticed.

More importantly, Ibuki noticed that the Fighters who left United Sanctuary that week had all fought Kiba Shion. Some other Fighters who had also faced Kiba Shion were coming less frequently and for shorter periods of time than they used to.

It was very intriguing.

How could a 14-year-old child so easily break the influence that a cult of personality such as Kanzaki had?

Ibuki had talked to some of the Fighters before they left the Branch.

“He’s so strong but just… not in the same way as the Branch Chief is,” one of them had said.

“It was almost like Kiba-kun’s Vanguard brought me to a different world. I think I like his version of Vanguard better.”

Huh.

Did Kiba Shion have an imagination forceful enough to inspire others?

If so, how had he never been discovered before? And how had he ended up here, at a Branch whose hidden agenda was to collect Stride Force?

Left unchecked, Kiba Shion could prove to be very dangerous. Thus, Ibuki decided to look into him more carefully.

After all, from his school uniform, it seemed that he went to the same middle school as Shindou Chrono anyway. Ibuki wouldn’t even have to go out of his way.

* * *

A few days after he left the Gear Chronicle deck in Shindou Chrono’s locker, Ibuki realized that something was wrong.

Shindou Chrono was nothing like he was supposed to be.

The Shindou Chrono that he had observed before was a loner. He had no friends, a generally cold and awkward disposition, and was indifferent about life.

The current Shindou Chrono was still slightly awkward, but he had an open personality and made friends very easily.

Upon his first visit to Card Capital 2, he easily befriended Katsuragi Kamui and many of the regular customers. 

In fact, it seemed that he had managed to make two lifelong friends in a few short days: Anjou Tokoha and Kiba Shion.

(Ibuki could already feel the impending headache.)

From what Ibuki could tell, the three of them spent all their free time together. Kiba Shion may frequent the United Sanctuary Branch nowadays, but he still made time for his two friends.

(Now that Ibuki thought about it, hadn’t Kiba Shion started showing up to the United Sanctuary Branch around the same time Shindou Chrono had first gotten his deck?)

Nothing about this situation made sense. Ibuki had looked up their backgrounds.

Anjou Tokoha was the younger sister of the Kagero Clan Leader, Anjou Mamoru. An honours student and highly involved in the community, she would have next to no reason to speak to Chrono. She was known to visit Card Capital 2 regularly, but could she and Chrono have bonded over Vanguard that quickly? Especially since Chrono was supposedly so apathetic about everything?

Kiba Shion was, of course, another mystery. Nevermind the fact that Tokoha was so loyal to the Dragon Empire Branch that it was odd that he would even think of going to United Sanctuary, but he also seemed to be remarkably down-to-earth and clever for a teen who had grown up with his privileged family background. 

As strange and off-putting as Anjou Tokoha and Kiba Shion seemed to be, they were not the only problems. After all, Chrono also had three other friends who were also often at Card Capital 2.

Asukawa Taiyou seemed to be, for all intents and purposes, a normal elementary school student. He didn’t appear to have ever visited the store until Chrono showed up, but seemed to be very familiar with it already.

Yumizuki Luna both lived and went to school in Hachioji, miles away in western Tokyo and deep within the Zoo Branch’s territory. Why she made the nearly two-hour trip out to Card Capital 2 in Edogawa nearly every day was beyond Ibuki.

Chouno Am was even more of a mystery. An entertainment industry veteran, she had been scouted at a young age and was now one of the most popular Vanguard idols in Japan. Which, of course, meant that she may be connected to the Vanguard Association. Ibuki had investigated further into her career, and while she didn’t have any definite links to Myoujin, some of her sponsors were suspected to be under his influence.

(Yes, Ibuki was definitely going to keep an eye on her.)

So, these were the types of people that Chrono had suddenly chosen to surround himself with.

This… wasn’t supposed to happen, at least not like this.

Ibuki, of course, had planned on Chrono gaining friends and encouraging him to get stronger in order to eventually awaken the Depend Card, but this was not the plan.

What made it even more unsettling was that Chrono seemed to not at all be bothered by Ibuki’s existence.

When Ibuki eventually made a quest to lure Chrono to the United Sanctuary Branch, Chrono was not thrown off by anything.

Sure, he’d made a good show of being impressed by the GIRS system, but there was definitely not enough genuine amazement considering the advanced nature and rarity of the technology.

The Fight itself also felt off. A Fight revealed everything about a person, but there was just something that wasn’t quite right about Shindou Chrono’s Fight.

He made a couple of beginner’s mistakes and unbalanced plays, but they almost felt intentional. Sometimes it almost seemed like he wanted to make a certain move, but then realized that he didn’t have the right cards to do so.

Chrono used enough Stride Force at the end of the Fight to summon a real unit from Cray, which Ibuki didn’t quite expect but was not too overly surprised by.

However, the Fight was overall very murky.

There was something that Ibuki didn’t know.

Ibuki didn’t like not knowing.

* * *

Kiba Shion qualified for Team Demise a few days after Ibuki officially met Shindou Chrono.

There had been no enthusiasm or celebrations when he heard the news. Shion just gave Ibuki that same, unassuming smile.

Then again, Shinonome and Hashima were also not overly excited when they were selected to join Team Demise, so Ibuki didn’t think too much of it.

His reaction to the special program, however, was odd.

No rational person, when asked to walk up a staircase leading to a mysterious light, would do so willingly. At least, not without asking a few questions first.

Shion simply blinked once, and then _went for it_.

No reservations, as if he already knew what was ahead.

Generally, no one came back the same way from Team Demise’s special training. It was a process designed to amplify a Fighter’s worst personality traits in order to cultivate delusions of their strength and superiority.

Shion came out of special training both looking and acting like a completely normal, sane human being.

This… simply does not happen.

His introduction to Hashima Rin and Shinonome Shouma also did not go as Ibuki anticipated.

Both of them were curious about the young Fighter who had suddenly dominated the rankings, and Shion was surprisingly receptive to their eccentricities.

Hashima Rin was notoriously rude and acerbic, a reputation that was on full display for Shion, but the boy seemed unbothered.

(Ibuki had checked the footage later. Hashima had eventually grown fed up with Shion’s complacency and challenged him to a Fight, which Shion had won. Perhaps that had something to do with it.)

On the other hand, Shinonome Shouma appeared to be fascinated by Shion. He looked at the Royal Paladin player almost like he was a rare specimen to be dissected, or a prized circus animal performing tricks on centre stage.

Even Ibuki found it unsettling, to say the least.

However, Shion took that Shinonome’s obsession even more in stride than Hashima’s insults.

Almost like he was used to it.

Which was more terrifying, a psychopath who openly displayed their lack of morals, or one who walked among such psychopaths without fear?

Ibuki was leaning closer to the latter.

* * *

_Branch Chief Kanzaki is wearing green argyle socks today._

_-☀️_

Ibuki barely blinked.

After all, it was 10:00 AM, and it wasn’t like today’s message was any weirder than usual.

The messages, delivered in the form of pop-up windows on his computer, had started about two weeks ago, when Ibuki was greeted at 10:00 AM sharp by simply:

_Why does Branch Chief Kanzaki use so much eyeshadow? (Also… why purple? What is this, 2001?)_

_-☀️_

Ibuki was confused, to say the least.

Another message popped up again the next day at 10:00 AM.

_Did you know that Branch Chief Kanzaki does his own brows? Like, is it supposed to be some avant-garde attempt at contouring? They lowkey look like 2 angry purple hawks are making a dive for his nose._

_-☀️_

The messages continued on, day after day, always at 10:00 AM.

Ibuki had tried everything he could to figure out the identity of this “ _☀️_ ”, but not even the Vanguard Association’s IT department could figure out how this mysterious entity kept on sending messages to Ibuki.

(Not that Ibuki could prove that there were any messages in the first place. The pop-up windows left no trace of their presence after Ibuki read them, and any screenshots he tried to take of them were automatically deleted. Plus, whenever someone other than Ibuki alone had his computer at 10:00 AM, the messages never appeared.)

The messages remained mostly strange facts about Kanzaki, but every once in a while, Ibuki would be find himself wondering if this mysterious person had some ulterior motive for targeting him:

_Fun fact #1: The Lab’s shift changeover alternates between 11:30 and 14:30 on Tuesdays._

_Fun fact #2: Branch Chief Kanzaki always presides over the shift changeover when he is in the building. If he is not, the Lab is left empty for up to 5 minutes._

_Fun fact #3: Branch Chief Kanzaki’s weekly meeting with the Association is from 13:00 to 15:00 on Tuesdays_

_-☀️_

Why did “☀️” think that Ibuki needed to know this information?

(Or rather, why did “☀️” know that Ibuki would find this information useful?)

Of course, then there was the odd message or two that wasn’t about Kanzaki. For example:

_Shindou Chrono will be at Card Capital 2 from 15:37 to 17:14 today. His bike will be locked in the bike rack underneath the store. No one will pass by this bike rack between 16:09 and 16:16._

_-_ ☀️

...Chrono did have a friend named Asukawa _Taiyou_ , didn’t he?

* * *

The other day, Anjou Tokoha - the sweetheart of the Dragon Empire Branch - marched into the Dark Zone Branch.

Ibuki couldn’t even begin to fathom why.

The Dark Zone Branch was the smallest of the Vanguard Association Branches, and fittingly didn’t have many staff members. It was not the worst performing Branch of the Vanguard Association, but it was definitely not among the best. It just seemed to be there to carry out the basic duties that a Branch was mandated to fulfill. 

The Branch Chief was Enishi Satoru, who was actually a few years younger than Ibuki himself. Almost nothing else was known about the teenage Branch Chief.

Enter Anjou Tokoha, with Yumizuki Luna in tow.

The two of them breezed through the Dark Zone Branch like a storm. Sitting at the eye, they destroyed anything and everything they touched.

The next day, they came back and repeated the same process.

It wasn’t a violent destruction. No, they were both perfectly civil to their opponents. Rather, it was a polite declaration of war.

And war came. On the third day, when Tokoha and Luna arrived at the Dark Zone Branch, the Branch Chief himself came out to greet them.

They exchanged a few words before Enishi invited Tokoha to Fight him.

After that, a strange thing occurred.

Tokoha defeated Enishi. At this point, that didn’t surprise Ibuki.

No, what was surprising was what happened to the Dark Zone Branch afterwards.

Suddenly, the Branch underwent reformations that encouraged Fighters young and old to join them for a variety of activities to fuel their passion for Vanguard. While Dark Zone had not been as far gone as United Sanctuary, the new direction that the Branch was taking quickly made it a hub within the Vanguard community that cultivated the passion of the newest generation of Fighters.

And it wasn’t the doing of Enishi Satoru, either.

No, it seemed that while he was still technically the Branch Chief of the Dark Zone Branch, the terms of his Fight with Tokoha had somehow led to her now having total control of the Branch’s activities in everything but name.

In his research of the situation, Ibuki decided to look into Enishi Satoru.

To his nearly nonexistent shock, Enishi was connected to a subsidiary organization of the Vanguard Association that was suspected of being associated with Myoujin Ryuzu.

(Ibuki didn’t even know what questions to ask at this point.)

Regardless of that, one thing was clear:

In a three day campaign - which, retrospectively, was quite fitting for the sweetheart of the Dragon _Empire_ Branch - Anjou Tokoha had conquered and subjugated the Dark Zone Branch.

Anjou Tokoha had won the war. 

* * *

Ibuki was reasonably sure that Kiba Shion was starting a cult. 

The members of Team Demise tended to have a posse or fan-club of sorts. The prestige that came with being the top Fighters of the Branch was plenty as it is, but Shion also had enough charisma and intelligence to capitalize on it.

While Shinonome Shouma and Hashima Rin seemed content to perch on their thrones, Kiba Shion traversed the masses.

There existed four types of Fighters in the Branch: those who were in awe of Kiba Shion, those who were begrudgingly impressed, those who were bitterly jealous, and those who were casually dismissive.

Ibuki would argue that there should be a fifth type: those who lived in profound terror of Kiba Shion.

For, in the last week, Shion had played against 327 Fighters of the Branch, and over half of them had left in the following week.

Now, Shion was the heir to one of Japan’s biggest business conglomerates. He was clearly no stranger to pulling resources to achieve the results that he desired.

This time, the resource came in the form of Chouno Am.

The idol started visiting the Branch on a regular basis a few days ago, and since then, had managed to cause the departure of nearly everyone who had previously Fought Shion but had yet to leave the Branch.

Not to mention, she was climbing the ranks nearly as fast as Shion did when he first arrived at the Branch.

They were an unstoppable duo.

While Shion had long had nearly the entire female population of the Branch wrapped around his finger, Am had almost the entire male population bent to her will. Of course, that wasn’t even considering the impact of their overwhelming Stride Force and sheer strength.

Thus, it came as no surprise that the number of Fighters in the United Sanctuary Branch kept dropping, day after day.

However, that was no longer the only thing that Ibuki was interested in.

No, what was new about Shion’s newest campaign was that after Fights, he had begun to hand out business cards to his opponents. Am also did the same.

Ibuki had found one of these cards, dropped just outside the entrance of the Branch. It was plain, white, and had two lines of text written on them - a set of coordinates and a time.

The coordinates led Ibuki to a forest clearing on the edge of Tokyo on a weekday evening, where, about 15 minutes before the time indicated on the card, people started to gather.

From his position just out of view of the crowd, Ibuki could see that they were all ex-members of the United Sanctuary Branch.

By the time it had reached the hour written on the card, the sky was dark and upwards of 100 people had gathered in the clearing.

All of a sudden, a slow drum beat rumbled deep in the forest.

The crowd’s chattering died down as the drum beat got closer, and closer.

Half a minute later, Chouno Am and Yumizuki Luna emerged from the woods, both wearing dark robes and carrying lit wooden torches.

Next, Anjou Tokoha appeared, also in dark robes, stony-faced and hitting her bass drum in equal solemnity.

Lastly, Kiba Shion strode into the clearing, donning a long black cloak.

The crowd parted to let the four teens walk into the centre of the clearing.

Once they were seemingly in place - with Tokoha in the back, Shion in the front, and Am and Luna on either side - Shion held up a hand.

Tokoha’s drumming stopped.

Suddenly, there was a rustling in the forest.

Ibuki and the crowd both instinctively turned towards the dark, wooden depths.

Ever so slowly, a large, non-human shape was surfacing from the shadows.

The shape drew nearer, and clearer.

Finally, it stepped into the clearing. It stood tall, imposing, face flickering and eyes glowing from the flame of the torches.

It was Vangarou.

Yes, the mascot of the Dragon Empire Branch. 

_Vangarou_.

Vangarou made its way into the centre of the clearing in plodding steps.

It stopped beside Shion.

Shion immediately knelt down before the mascot.

“All hail Vangarou-sama, our Lord and Savior!” the blond boy cried.

The crowd followed suit.

“All hail Vangarou-sama, our Lord and Savior!” they chanted, falling to their knees.

“O Vangarou-sama, may you cleanse our wrongful beliefs of sin and infuse our souls with the power of imagination!”

“O Vangarou-sama, may you cleanse our wrongful beliefs of sin and infuse our souls with the power of imagination!”

Okay, so clearly, Ibuki was no longer reasonably sure that Kiba Shion was starting a cult.

No, Ibuki _knew_ that Kiba Shion had started a cult.

* * *

There was definitely something not quite right about Shindou Chrono.

Sure, the boy went to school, hung out with his friends, and occasionally stopped in alleyways to feed some stray cats as normal teenagers do. However, he just never seemed surprised about anything.

Granted, he sometimes looked surprised, but Chrono was a terrible actor.

Ibuki had taken to observing Chrono whenever he left him a new card.

Chrono would always approach the card, roll his eyes, before letting out a terribly fake gasp of surprise and opening the envelope.

Then, when he first looked at the card, he would barely read it over before absent-mindedly shoving it into his deck.

This was not how typical new Vanguard players treated new cards.

Of course, then there was how he used those cards.

Ibuki had managed to observe countless Fights between Chrono and his five friends from hidden corners and shadows.

At the very beginning, he’d thought that Shion’s skill would be the outlier, but it quickly became clear everyone in their group was evenly matched, even though Chrono should have been legions behind in experience alone.

How were six previously unknown children skilled enough to be world-class Fighters? Ibuki honestly had no idea what to make of that.

Ibuki decided to just keep watching him.

(Strangely, they all tended to pick locations with lots of good hiding spots when they decided to Fight.)

* * *

As he stood outside the Branch Chief’s office, Ibuki could hear the man’s voice.

“Why are you here, Kiba.”

“I have a proposal,” Shion replied.

“Go on.”

“I think it would be beneficial for the United Sanctuary Branch to hold a tournament with outside Fighters. The winners would be able to challenge Team Demise. This way, we can both ingratiate ourselves with the Vanguard Association as well as promote our Branch team.”

“And why would we need to do this?”

“To quell any doubts.”

“Doubts that you yourself have inspired?”

Maybe Kanzaki was more perceptive than Ibuki had given him credit for.

“Doubts that can be resolved with a show of strength,” Shion easily returned.

“Why should I listen to you?

“Because what better way is there to prove that ‘weakness is a sin’ than with a crushing victory? To demonstrate the superiority of the United Sanctuary Branch’s teachings? To define for the masses what true strength is in relation to weakness?”

There was a brief silence.

“Hmph, I’ll consider it.”

“Thank you sir, that’s all I ask for. Please pardon the intrusion.”

Footsteps started towards the door.

“Kiba!” Kanzaki then called, “I know you have an objective.”

A pause.

“But that doesn’t matter to me. You’re strong.”

From close to the door, Shion chuckled.

“I wish I could say the same to you, Branch Chief Kanzaki.”

* * *

Ibuki was watching Chrono gesture wildly at a map with Tokoha and Luna in the middle of a local park.

He was too far away to make out what they were saying, and Chrono was sitting in a way that just blocked Ibuki’s view of the map.

Ibuki sighed. Well, he supposed that he would just have to take a guess at where to leave the next Gear Chronicle cards for him.

Suddenly, Tokoha leaned over and whispered something in Chrono’s ear.

Chrono frowned slightly, then glanced over to where Ibuki was hidden.

The boy proceeded to shift his position ever-so-slightly so that Ibuki now had a perfect view of the map, before he resumed talking with the girls.

What.

As Chrono spoke, Tokoha also looked over at Ibuki’s position.

The green-haired girl winked.

What.

* * *

Ibuki had wondered why Shion would propose such a tournament and challenge match. Obviously, there were the reasons that he had given Kanzaki, but what did he seek to gain from it?

Then, on the day of the event, he saw the registration list.

_Team Eclipse_

_Anjou Tokoha_

_Yumizuki Luna_

_Asukawa Taiyou_

That both explained nothing and everything.

(And of course, Team Eclipse ended up winning the tournament.)

* * *

_1 13 32 44 46 73_

_-☀️_

_17 19 24 69 88 97_

_-☀️_

_9 23 47 72 77 81_

_-☀️_

Ibuki didn’t know whether or not he should have been surprised to find out that those were the winning lottery numbers for the next three days.

* * *

The Team Demise challenge match both went as expected and completely unexpected.

Tokoha trounced Hashima Rin, Luna somehow dominated her round against Shinonome Shouma, and Shion defeated Asukawa Taiyou in what was surprisingly the most well-matched Fight of the day.

That was all relatively expected.

What was unexpected was the audience:

They had brought the cult.

For the entire challenge match, the stadium was in a state of pandemonium. United Sanctuary’s teachings were strong, but it ends up that “the Lord and Savior, Vangarou’s” teachings about the power of imagination and how weakness was, in fact, _not_ a sin were equally strong.

The two sides sat, fittingly, on opposite ends of the stadium, throwing jeers at each other at every opportunity. The United Sanctuary members would start chanting “weakness is a sin” while the other group would clasp their hands together and pray to “forgive their fellow Fighters of their wrongdoings and allow them to see the light, O Vangarou-sama.”

The Fights on the stadium floor were nothing compared to the fierce battle tearing through the stands.

It was, to say the least, the strangest thing that Ibuki had ever witnessed.

Or maybe, even that wasn’t the most unexpected part of this all. 

No, perhaps that honour should go to what happened after the match.

At that point, half the audience was, unsurprisingly, in uproar. After all, how could Team Demise lose in a match meant to demonstrate its strength?

“I thought United Sanctuary was the strongest, how could they lose?” someone said.

“The only person who won was Kiba Shion, and he barely takes stock in United Sanctuary’s teachings,” commented another.

“Why are we here if this is all we’ll amount to? Maybe Kiba was right to question the Branch Chief.”

Meanwhile, Kiba Shion’s cult was frantically thanking their “Lord and Savior Vangarou-sama” for its blessings.

“Kiba Shion!” a booming voice suddenly called out.

All eyes turned to Branch Chief Kanzaki, who was standing on a platform at the top of the stadium.

“Fight me!”

“While I would welcome the opportunity,” Shion answered from the center of the stadium, where he had been standing with the rest of Team Demise, “is it truly me who you wish to Fight, sir?”

“Do not question me, Kiba Shion!”

“With all due respect sir, is it me? You may know that I have an objective, but I also know that _you_ have an objective. Do I have what you seek?”

The tension in the air was palpable.

Kanzaki then let out a roaring laugh.

“Very well, Kiba Shion. Then pray tell, who can give me what I seek?”

Shion smiled.

“I think you know the answer to that, sir.”

With that, Shion turned towards the entrance of the stadium.

A familiar drumbeat began.

Ibuki watched as Am and Luna again emerged with their torches, and Tokoha with her drum.

And then of course, in all of its 7-foot, rectangular glory - 

Vangarou.

Shion knelt before Vangarou and offered a deck up to the mascot. Vangarou took the deck and raised it bottom-card-up to Kanzaki.

Ibuki squinted at the monitors to read the card.

_Chronojet Dragon._

Ah.

The Gear Chronicle Singularity had decided to become a cult leader.

* * *

Ibuki may be suspicious of the situation, but he was not about to miss such a golden opportunity.

For as long as the Fight went on, Kanzaki was not going to be able to check on the Depend Card. Which meant that all Ibuki had to do to get to the Card was to go through a couple of scientists.

He snuck down to the labs.

When he got there, the doors were already open.

In the middle of the lab, Kiba Shion was stuffing a taser gun into his pocket, leaving a group of fallen scientists in his wake. A few meters away, Asukawa Taiyou was tapping away at a keyboard in front of the monitors.

Stalking up to them, Ibuki pulled Taiyou away from the computer with one hand and grabbed Shion by the collar with his other.

(Yes, it was a bit harsh since Taiyou's arm was as thin as a broomstick and Shion was a middle schooler who was a full head shorter than Ibuki, but there were more important things to think about.)

Shion didn’t seem fazed.

“Oh, hello Ibuki-san! Are you here for the Depend Card?”

“Who are you? How do you know what that is?”

“We're not working for Myoujin Ryuzu, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”

“How do you know that name?”

Shion smiled.

(Ibuki didn’t know how he could have ever thought that his smile was unassuming. No, Kiba Shion’s smile was _conniving_.)

“For the same reason why I know everything else. And why we all know everything else.”

“So you admit that you’ve been conspiring together?”

Shion shrugged. Or, at least he tried to, considering his position.

“Not like we were trying to keep that a secret from you.”

Ibuki tightened his grip.

“Kiba Shion, what do you want?”

Shion let out a small sigh, then craned his head to look at the monitor where the match of Kanzaki VS Vangar - er - Chrono was playing.

“Ibuki-san, while I’d love to stay and talk some more, you're on a tight schedule. The match is almost over and you still have to get the Depend Card and clear the evidence. Don’t worry, Taiyou has already cleared the data.”

As if on cue, all but one of the monitors - which was playing the match in the stadium - switched into black screens with green text that read:

_Error: no data found_

_ALL HAIL OUR LORD AND SAVIOR, VANGAROU-SAMA_

_-☀️_

Ibuki’s eye twitched.

“And why should I listen to you?”

Shion looked a little puzzled.

“You _do_ want the Depend Card, don’t you?”

Ibuki resisted the urge to pinch his nose. He let go of Shion and Taiyou.

“Fine.”

Walking over to the door, Ibuki stuck his head into the hallway.

“Dog Trainers!” he called.

A couple Dog Trainers emerged.

“Take Kiba Shion and his accomplice to my office. They tried to interfere with the Branch Chief’s work. I’ll guard this lab while you do that.”

“Yes sir.”

“Additionally, retrieve Anjou Tokoha, Yumizuki Luna, Chouno Am, and that Vangarou immediately after the current match ends. Escort them all to my office as well.”

“Yes sir.”

As the Dog Trainers moved toward Shion and Taiyou, the older boy glanced up at the monitor.

“Oh look, it’s over,” he said.

Ibuki turned around to see that indeed, the match between Chrono and Kanzaki had ended. Despite the lack of audio, the unrest of the stadium’s crowd was obvious.

Even the Dog Trainers paused to watch as hundreds of people proceeded to stand up and start throwing their United Sanctuary bracelets into the center of the stadium.

“Taiyou, will you do the honours?” Shion asked.

The younger boy slipped out of a Dog Trainer’s grasp for just long enough to tap a single key on the keyboard.

Immediately, live audio from the stadium was broadcast into the room at full volume.

_“All hail Vangarou-sama!”_

_“Long live our Lord and Savior!”_

Above them, the metal bracelets falling on the stadium floor thumped like a hailstorm.

Shion chuckled up at the ceiling.

“Vive la révolution.”

* * *

Ibuki paced up and down the length of his office.

Before his desk, Chrono, Shion, Tokoha, Am, Luna, and Taiyou watched him. They were eerily calm.

The Vangarou costume sat in a heap by the door.

None of them said anything as Ibuki finally stopped pacing and slumped into his desk.

“There are so many possibilities that I’ve considered,” Ibuki started.

Six pairs of eyes stared back silently.

“I thought that you could be Myoujin’s spies. That would make the most sense, but then you shouldn’t have let me get suspicious of you nor essentially give me the Depend Card. You could also be part of another organization, but that doesn’t explain your other actions.”

Ibuki took a deep breath, before facing Tokoha.

“Anjou Tokoha, you and Yumizuki Luna conquered the Dark Zone Branch in 3 days. Not only that, but you purposely drew my attention to the Branch to allow me to find its connection to Myoujin Ryuzu.”

He then turned to Taiyou.

“Asukawa Taiyou, while most of your cryptic messages had no practical value, the few that were informative contained facts that you should not know. In fact, some of them was knowledge that _no one_ should know.”

Next, he focused on Chrono.

“Shindou Chrono, you are far too skilled to be a simple beginner, and you are a terrible actor.”

Lastly, he looked at Shion.

“And of course, Kiba Shion. You infiltrated the United Sanctuary Branch alongside Chouno Am to recruit members for your cult. You then set up this whole tournament, drew Kanzaki’s interest, and indirectly converted this entire Branch to your ludicrous cause. You were always 3 steps ahead, because you knew _too much_.”

Ibuki sighed, scrubbing his hands over his face before continuing. 

“I can’t believe I’m about to say this, and I honestly think I’ve lost my mind. But this is the only explanation I’ve been able to come up with that seems to fit all the facts.”

He took a deep breath.

“Are you, somehow… time travellers?”

The six exchanged a look, then stared back at Ibuki.

There was a long silence.

Then, suddenly, Tokoha started laughing uproariously.

“Well?” she crowed, between bouts of laughter, “pay up, Chrono!”

The boy in question scowled.

“I can’t believe the cult worked.”

“And _I_ can’t believe that you didn’t think Am and Shion could start a cult! They’re _Am_ and _Shion._ ”

“No, that’s not the problem! Of course they would be able to start a cult, but why would they? And centre it around _Vangarou_ of all things? Honestly, Taiyou was the only one who did anything that made any sense. All you and Luna had to do was bring attention to Enishi, but instead you straight up took over the Dark Zone Branch because you were bored!”

Am smirked.

“Like we said, the easiest way to get anyone to leave a cult is to make them join _another_ cult.”

“And hey, the costume was just sitting there,” Tokoha pointed out.

“Plus, you made an excellent Lord and Savior,” Shion added reassuringly.

Taiyou and Luna both nodded vigorously.

“All that prior experience must have really helped,” Am remarked.

Chrono groaned.

“Guys, I told you, it’s not what you think.”

“Not what we think? Chrono, the last time I checked, you had 57 cats tailing you on a regular basis,” Tokoha exclaimed.

“58 now,” Luna corrected, “I just met Nutmeg.”

“See, Chrono? You know your cat brethren has gotten out of hand when Luna runs out of desserts to name them after.”

“Are the cats time travellers too?” Taiyou wondered, “is that why Chrono’s cat army is still growing after all this time?”

Ibuki watched as the six continued bickering away.

Running a hand through his hair, he begun, “So - ”

The six friends stopped and looked towards him.

“So, why me?”

Chrono scratched his head sheepishly.

“Well, considering the role that you play in this, we decided that telling you was a good idea, ” he replied.

“But after what happened the last few times, we thought that we should try something different,” Tokoha added.

“So we decided to see what would happen if you came to your own conclusion.” Taiyou finished.

Ibuki blinked.

“Wait, the last few times?”

Tokoha tilted her head.

“Right,” she exclaimed, clapping her hands together, “we forgot to mention! We’re actually in a time loop. This is round… 190-something? 192?”

Luna and Am shrugged at each other while Shion made an “about-so” gesture with his hand.

“We’ve tried telling you a few times before,” Tokoha continued, “but hopefully it works out this time! Oh, and also - ”

She smiled cheerily at Ibuki.

“ - try not to die so gruesomely this time, okay Ibuki-san? I think Luna still gets nightmares.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never expected this chapter of all things to almost reach 6000 words, but here we are.
> 
> Huge shoutout to Sage ([manila_envelope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/manila_envelope)) for reading the first draft of this and giving me really helpful feedback! Make sure you check out her work, [hypocrite](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25909213/chapters/62966518) is insanely good even if you are clueless about lore like me.
> 
> Also, big shoutout to Chrona for letting me use her amazing headcanon about Chrono's cat army! ~~I'm sure this is not how you imagined I'd use it when I said I wanted to use it lol, but I hope you don't mind~~. Her other ideas are incredible too! Seriously, you have never known Gyze!Chrono AUs until you've read through her ideas on our [Discord server](https://discord.com/invite/Gx4EAW6r9u).
> 
> EDIT: Would you like to join the Cult of Vangarou? Well, the lovely Poyo has written [a guide about the art of worshipping our Lord and Savior, Vangarou-sama](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26577583/chapters/64795798). Make sure you check it out! (I also don't know how this happened.)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	5. inception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in·cep·tion  
> /inˈsepSH(ə)n/  
>  _noun_  
>  The establishment or starting point of an institution or activity.

Enishi Satoru was utterly lost.

It all started when he caught Chouno Am holding a large duffel bag and loitering by the entrance of the Company headquarters. She was under strict instructions to never leave the premises unless given explicit permission, and had followed this rule very well in all the years that he had known her.

“Chouno Am, what are you doing here?”

“Hi Enishi-san,” she greeted, “I’m quitting.”

Enishi blinked.

“You’re… quitting,” he repeated, slowly, “...what, exactly?”

Am tilted her head innocently.

“Company, of course. And idol work too, as an extension of that.”

Enishi stared at her.

“...you’re the Peacemaker.”

“Yes, I’m well aware of that.”

“And you wish to abandon your vital role in the perfect future that Myoujin-shi is creating?”

“Correct, that’s exactly what I intend to do.”

The two stared at each other for a moment longer.

“Well,” Am began, picking up the bag that she had dropped at her feet, “if that’s all, I’ll be going now.”

“You know that I cannot let you go. I have sworn to protect the ideal future and the Peacemaker is a necessary component.”

Am paused, and then smiled at Enishi.

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“Chouno Am, if you intend to leave after Myoujin-shi has offered you so much kindness and a role in his great vision, then you shall need to face me first.”

(Enishi could swear that he heard Am mutter “thank god it’s not the robots” under her breath before agreeing to the Fight.)

* * *

In an astonishingly one-sided match, Chouno Am trampled Enishi, walked out of the Company headquarters, and didn’t return.

Myoujin seemed remarkably unconcerned, as did the other members of Company.

(Perhaps it had something to do with the new, stronger Peacemaker candidate that they had their eye on. Yumizuki Luna, was it?)

The Stride Gate plan moved forward. And although Enishi tried, he couldn’t quite shake his confusion at this entire situation.

How could Chouno Am just leave Company like this, after Myoujin had taken her in at her weakest and given her everything she had ever known?

Why would Chouno Am abandon a perfect future?

Enishi did not understand how this could have possibly happened.

Regardless, he carried out Company’s plans as given.

The Dark Zone Branch was running smoothly, the FICAs and GIRS systems were steadily gathering Stride Force, and Chronofang Tiger had been awakened.

All was well.

Enishi didn’t hear about Chouno Am again until the Branch Chiefs’ meeting the next month, where Kanzaki Yuuichirou’s seat was conspicuously empty.

“Did you hear about what happened at the United Sanctuary Branch last week?” the Zoo Branch Chief asked, the moment they all sat down.

All the other Branch Chiefs sighed.

Anjou Mamoru, the Kagero Clan Leader who sometimes accompanied the Dragon Empire Branch Chief to these meetings, buried his face in his hands.

Huh.

“...what exactly happened?” Enishi raised, because he honestly didn’t know.

The Zoo Branch Chief looked at him in surprise.

“No one told you?” she questioned incredulously.

Considering that all the Dark Zone staff were either part of Myoujin’s plan, idolized him, or seemed too intimidated to talk to him - 

“No, no one has,” Enishi replied.

“Well, you’re in for a story,” the Zoo Branch Chief said, leaning back in her chair, “Mamoru-chan, would you like to do the honours?”

“Please no,” Anjou Mamoru moaned, voice muffled between his hands.

The Dragon Empire Branch Chief gave him a commiserating pat on the back before taking pity on Enishi.

“Mamoru-kun’s little sister and her friends stormed the United Sanctuary Branch this week,” he explained.

Enishi blinked.

“Stormed… in what sense? Did they challenge the Branch’s Fighters?”

The Dragon Empire Branch Chief sighed.

“If only they did that,” he muttered, before rubbing his beard and sighing, “no, they wore black hooded cloaks and screamed ‘THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU’ at whoever tried to stop them while shoving wooden crosses in their faces.”

Enishi blinked once. And then again.

“...and what did that accomplish?”

“Well, eventually, they caused enough of a ruckus for Team Demise to come deal with them - ”

(Right, they were United Sanctuary’s Branch team)

“ -plus, they had brought enough tasers to bring down most of their staff. Anyway, Team Demise comes down to Fight them, and Tokoha-chan and her friends easily win.”

“Weren’t Team Demise the favourites to win the National Championship this year?”

“ _Exactly._ After that, Kanzaki finally comes down, at which point one of the kids boldly challenges him ‘in the name of Christ” and Kanzaki’s ‘misappropriation of the word “sin”’.”

“...and that worked?”

The larger man shrugged.

“No one really knows what happened after that, but apparently Kanzaki accepted the challenge after seeing a card from the kid’s deck. Soon after that, everyone left in the Branch went over to their stadium to watch the match. And then - surprise, surprise - _the kid wins._ Apparently after that, something even weirder happened where something shaped like a Unit appeared and threw Kanzaki into the water above their GIRS machines, if some members of the audience are to be believed.”

(Did… this unknown child manage to summon a real Unit?)

“And how did you find out about all of this?”

The Dragon Empire Branch Chief sighed again.

“Tokoha-chan called us afterwards to ask us to investigate the United Sanctuary Branch. While she was right about their unethical training programs, Fighter hierarchy, and frankly cult-like tendencies, why didn’t she just call us in the first place to deal with it instead of trying to literally _exorcise_ the place?”

With that, the blond man sank down tiredly in his seat.

Enishi was… bewildered, to say the least.

While Kanzaki Yuuichirou had also been exposed to Myoujin’s ideals, from what Enishi knew, he had chosen not to join Company and instead pursue personal power.

Regardless of that decision, Kanzaki was not a weak man.

For him to be taken down by a mere child? His Branch to be overrun by children?

(For said child to be able to summon a Unit?)

“Who were these children?” Enishi asked.

“Oh, so there was Mamoru-kun’s sister, Anjou Tokoha. Shindou Chrono took down Kanzaki, and I believe they defeated Team Demise together with their classmate Kiba Shion. They also took 3 of their other friends - Asukawa Taiyou, Yumizuki Luna, and Chouno Am, if I remember correctly.”

Ah.

So that’s what Chouno Am had been up to.

...why was she suddenly associated with the Gear Chronicle Singularity and a Peacemaker candidate?

Oh.

Oh, _wait_. 

Of course, that made complete sense. Everything made sense now.

How could Enishi have been so blind?

Am was a career idol, complete with brilliant acting skills and dazzling charisma. Sneaking around an enemy base, gaining connections, and earning their trust by scoring victories against smaller targets would be second nature to her.

Because like Enishi thought, there was no way Am could have ever betrayed Company. Of course not. That’s why no one else was worried.

Clearly, Chouno Am was simply on a reconnaissance mission.

* * *

Two weeks before the start of the G Quests, Enishi saw Chouno Am at a busy street corner.

She was wearing her usual disguise - round glasses, knit cap and all - and casually walking down the sidewalk.

Chouno Am was also… holding a gray tabby cat, for whatever reason.

Enishi caught up to her.

“Chouno.”

Am startled, stopped, and then glanced over at Enishi with a look of surprise.

“Enishi-san! Oh, hello. What are you doing here?”

“I should be asking you the same question.”

Am slowly stroked the cat in her arms and inclined her head towards a cafe a few store fronts away, where Anjou Tokoha and Yumizuki Luna were staring at the two of them in utter confusion.

“I was just going to… go hang out with my friends?”

Ah, that’s why she was acting like this right now. Right, Am had to play a role.

Well, in that case, as a member of Company - and probably as a known member at this point, considering how Am had used him in her “escape” from headquarters - Enishi couldn’t exactly let Am go without a fight if they didn’t want to raise any suspicions.

“Chouno Am, Fight me.”

The girl’s eyes widened even more.

“Right now?” she asked, looking between the cat in her arms and her friends behind her.

“Yes. You are the Peacemaker and it is my duty to bring you back to Company and see to it that you fulfill your role in Myoujin-shi’s vision.”

Am opened her mouth, and then closed it again.

“Um.”

She turned around to face her friends for a few seconds before whirling back again.

“You know what,” she said, nodding with an air of decisiveness, “sure. Let’s Fight.”

* * *

The match was just as one-sided as last time.

One victory Enishi could have attributed to simple luck, but two times was a pattern.

Whether or not he wanted to believe it, Am’s Vanguard skills had improved by leaps and bounds since her time in Company.

Of course, that was a great thing for Myoujin’s vision, but not a great thing when Enishi was trying to put on a convincing act of forcing Am to return to Company.

Throughout the match, Am’s demeanor emanated curiosity, though in retrospect Enishi supposed that that made sense, considering that she had never told him about her mission in the first place.

Am’s two friends were standing behind her, watching the Fight, though they seemed remarkably unworried considering the stakes.

Anjou Tokoha had her arms crossed and was repeatedly glancing at her watch, while Yumizuki Luna seemed more concerned about the cat that Am had handed her than the Fight.

(It’s name was “Clover”, apparently, if Yumizuki’s chattering was to be believed.)

Perhaps this meant that Enishi needed to up the ante a bit more.

“Chouno Am, by abandoning your obligations, do not forget what you are giving up. Do you not wish to see your parents again?”

That got everyone’s attention.

Anjou and Yumizuki looked at each other, and Am tilted her head.

“Well,” the Granblue user began, looking slightly bemused, “it’s not like I’ll actually get to see them again, you know. The Stride Gate just deludes everyone into seeing their ideal world, it’s not like it actually solves any real problems.”

Am drew a card to begin her turn.

“Actually, if you think about it, don’t you think that I’d be doing them a disservice by enacting Myoujin Ryuzu’s vision? Is this what they would have wanted, for me to spend my life trying to create a fake reality that numbs pain and erases free will to a point where life doesn’t even feel like life anymore? All that destruction for my own selfish reasons of wanting to see them again? All for some sense of misplaced guilt, vindictive justice?”

Solemn, mahogany eyes met wide, teal ones.

“I don’t think that’s what they would have wanted. They would be disappointed in me, and so would I.”

* * *

(What would _she_ have wanted?)

* * *

The G Quests were going well.

There were more participants than anyone had originally anticipated, which was not only great for the Vanguard Association, but also made amassing Stride Force more efficient than it otherwise could have been.

Of course, that may also be in part due to the fact that besides the Gear Chronicle Singularity, two Peacemaker candidates were also participating in the events.

Shindou Chrono’s Team TRY3 was dominating the G Quests and had yet to give up a single point.

However, Chouno Am, Yumizuki Luna, and Asukawa Taiyou’s Team Sirius also had the same amount of points.

The two teams never went to the same Branch on a given weekend, and were both able to win each Quest that they entered.

(Enishi could still remember the meeting where the Star Gate Branch Chief had alternated between ranting and raving about how a small, meek, pink-haired girl managed to take down _the_ Kai Toshiki.)

Although, both teams left the Dark Zone G Quest for last.

Well, Enishi supposed that that just gave him a greater opportunity to extract their Stride Force.

After he explained the Quest rules as usual and introduced the Emergency Quest to stop Team TRY3 and Team Sirius from winning the G Quest with a perfect record, Enishi made his way down to the tower entrance. Unsurprisingly, there were only two teams waiting for him.

Perfect, that maximized the number of Fights that they would have to partake in.

“You’re our only challengers?”

The six glanced at each other.

“I suppose so,” Am replied, shrugging.

“All right, let’s confirm the number of creatures stationed inside the tower.”

The monitor behind him displayed a virtual counter that rose rapidly until it reached an error screen.

“It seems the system is overloaded.”

Asukawa Taiyou let out a small sigh while Am simply raised an eyebrow.

Shindou Chrono looked like he was resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

“Fantastic,” the boy deadpanned.

“Oh joy,” Anjou Tokoha added, her tone just as flat.

Well, it looked like they were all equally excited about this.

“Then let’s begin. Open, Gates of Darkness!”

* * *

As expected, the creatures immediately descended upon both teams.

Team TRY3 left Anjou Tokoha on the first floor as a decoy, and Team Sirius followed suit with Asukawa Taiyou on the second floor.

By the time they reached the third floor, the creature density had thinned. From the monitors, Enishi could see Chouno Am make a detour to challenge Kiba Shion while letting Yumizuki Luna and Shindou Chrono reach the top of the tower.

Ah, how clever. The Gear Chronicle Singularity was a given, but Yumizuki Luna had a much higher raw Stride Force potential than Am, so letting her reach the top of the tower definitely maximized the magnitude of Stride Force that could be collected should there need to be a tie-breaking match.

Chouno Am definitely carried out her mission well.

Although the result didn’t really matter, the match between Shindou Chrono and Yumizuki Luna ended in Shindou’s victory, giving Team TRY3 a perfect G Quest record.

Enishi could swear he heard Am muttering something about “protagonist powers” and “plot armour” to Yumizuki Luna amidst the teasing and laughter as the six friends exited the building.

* * *

(Later - way later, Enishi would think about why he let Chouno Am go that day, when she had willingly waltzed into his territory, even bringing Yumizuki Luna.)

(What was he thinking? Why would he, as a loyal member of Company, give up such a perfect opportunity to bring back the Peacemaker?)

_(Why?)_

(In reality, Enishi knew exactly why.)

(Enishi Satoru had known Chouno Am for two years before she left Company.)

(And he had never seen her smile as bright or laugh as carefree as she did that day, on the floor of the Dark Zone Branch, playing Vanguard with her friends by her side.)

* * *

A week later, Enishi hung the gold, Generation Master medal around Chouno Am’s neck.

“Congratulations,” he murmured, as he slid the neck ribbon over her hair.

“Thank you, Branch Chief Enishi,” Am replied, rising from her bow, “it’s an honour.”

(Neither of them mentioned that in a normal world, Am would have been on centre stage right now, hosting the awards ceremony.)

“What do you plan on doing next?” Enishi asked the entire team, although mostly Am.

(Are you done? Are you finally coming back?)

Am looked at Enishi, eyes conveying the same aura that they just tended to these days.

_Deliberation._

Then, she exchanged a glance with her teammates, and smiled back up at Enishi.

“The same thing that we always do, of course! To play Vanguard and have fun. To do what’s right.”

Am then leaned forward, almost imperceptibly.

“What about you, Branch Chief Enishi? What do you plan on doing next?”

(What did he plan on doing next?)

(The same thing he always did, of course. What the Vanguard Association always did, what Company always did, what Myoujin always did.)

( ~~What was right.~~ )

* * *

Myoujin’s plans continued forth.

Soon after Ibuki Kouji and his faction invaded the Company headquarters, Company recruited a young girl from the back alleys of Kyoto as their new Peacemaker candidate.

Somehow, even though the plan was almost ready, Chouno Am had still not returned.

Moriyama Hiroki carried out Judgment at the United Sanctuary Branch, and the Branch Chiefs called a meeting at the Dragon Empire Branch to strategize.

Enishi accompanied the new Peacemaker to the Dragon Empire Branch to deliver Judgment unto them.

Anjou Mamoru’s inner flame befitted his Clan.

“Our job is to protect everyone’s smiles through Vanguard!”

Myoujin’s vision was the same as it always was - to bring about a perfect world with the power of Vanguard. A truly perfect world where there was no war, no hatred, no anger. Myoujin would give the world what it had yearned for since the dawn of time - unconditional peace and joy. 

And Enishi would be the bringer of truth, of enlightenment.

(But was that truly a perfect world?)

It was a mighty vision, one that required sacrifices. For, nothing great could be achieved at no cost.

“What are you talking about, ‘cost’? Isn’t it an adult’s duty to protect children’s smiles?” Anjou Mamoru had said, “the moment you tainted Vanguard and its Fighters’ hearts, your words stopped being worth listening to.”

Yet that was exactly what Myoujin intended to do, to protect children’s smiles.

(By tainting the Vanguard that _she_ had taught him?)

(Was this what _she_ would have wanted?)

Yet apparently, the truth that would govern the world wasn’t Enishi.

(But was it the truth?)

Rather, it was the Peacemaker.

“Attack.”

Enishi saw Kiba Shion appear out of nowhere to tackle Ibuki Kouji to the ground just before Chronobeat Buffalo could make contact. The Unit soared through the air, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake.

The Peacemaker wore a serene smile.

 _Is this what_ ~~ _they_~~ **_she_** _would have wanted, for me to spend my life trying to create a fake reality that numbs pain and erases free will to a point where life doesn’t even feel like life anymore?_

Around them, Enishi could barely make out the screams above the sound of falling debris. Loose concrete, rubble, and dust blanketed the Dragon Empire Branch’s lobby.

 _All that destruction for my own selfish reasons of wanting to see_ ~~ _them_~~ **_her_** _again?_

Enishi could barely make out the Peacemaker’s glowing silhouette now, beneath the dust and smoke. 

_All for some sense of misplaced guilt, vindictive justice?_

(Was this what _she_ would have wanted?)

* * *

( ~~No, no it wasn’t.~~ )

* * *

Chouno Am had apparently not changed her phone number since she left Company.

Two days after the Dragon Empire Branch incident, Enishi texted her a time and an address in the warehouse district.

Am showed up alone and empty handed, wearing a blank expression.

“You wanted to see me, Enishi-san?” she asked, tone unreadably neutral, as Enishi stepped into the warehouse.

“Yes,” Enishi confirmed, pulling out his deck.

“Fight me, Chouno Am.”

Am studied him for a second, the same contemplative look in her eye, before nodding.

A few turns later, Enishi wasn’t even surprised that this rematch was going even more poorly than their last one.

“Chouno, you were never on an undercover mission to bring Yumizuki Luna to Company, were you?”

Am nearly dropped her cards.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped, either in shock or in an attempt to hold back laughter, “but _what?_ ”

“I assumed you could not possibly betray Myoujin-shi’s vision, especially when you showed no signs of wavering in the days before you left.”

Still staring at Enishi in a mix between shock and amusement, Am slowly nodded.

“You know what, that’s actually a fair point,” she conceded.

“Yet you still did truly betray Company.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

Am met his gaze evenly.

“Because Myoujin Ryuzu isn’t trying to bring about an ideal world; he’s using Vanguard to take away the very essence of what makes life worth living. Because his paternalistic vision doesn’t bring us true happiness, only fake smiles. Because he made my friends suffer, and I will _never_ forgive him for that.”

“What about your parents?”

“The past is in the past. Meeting them again in an illusionary ideal future won’t bring them back. It’s an insult to their memory.”

( ~~And an insult to _her_ memory.~~)

“But if Vanguard has the ability to end wars and bring about world peace - to deliver justice - then don’t we have an obligation to use it to do so?”

“That’s not what Vanguard is about. Vanguard inspires us, it unites us, it teaches us to never give up, and brings us joy in our darkest times. Vanguard is meant to be fun, it’s meant to make us smile. Nothing could possibly be worth sacrificing genuine joy - the type that can only be found when we’ve experienced our share of suffering.”

( ~~Nothing could possibly be worth sacrificing the Vanguard that she had gifted him.~~ )

* * *

Am won the Fight, just as she had won the previous two.

Enishi didn’t say anything as she packed up her cards and left.

The air of curiosity had yet to leave her eyes.

* * *

(Was this what she would have wanted?)

(No, no it wasn’t.)

(And perhaps Enishi had known that all along - that this wasn’t the solution, this wouldn’t have saved her, that this wasn’t his atonement. That this wouldn’t bring her back, this wouldn’t protect her.)

(She would have never wanted this.)

(Because she loved Vanguard.)

(And Vanguard was supposed to protect smiles, _but not like this._ )

(And perhaps that’s why when he saw Anjou Tokoha before him in the Stride Gate, Enishi knew what had to be done.)

(The _right_ thing.)

(It’s what she would have wanted.)

* * *

_Briiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!_

Enishi was suddenly awakened by a familiar ringing.

He reflexively sat up and looked around.

His eyes widened.

This was… his bedroom? In his apartment? Apparently, he had been lying in his bed.

...how? 

The last that he remembered, Anjou Tokoha had just beaten him in a Fight in the Stride Gate, and then everything had faded to white…

Was this part of the Stride Gate’s judgement? Had the other Company Arbiters won?

Was that all a dream?

Or… was this the ideal future?

Almost subconsciously, Enishi reached over to the nightstand to turn off his phone alarm.

He froze at the sight of the lock screen.

_Tuesday, June 9th, 20XX_

Huh.

_Huh._

That’s strange.

As far as Enishi could remember, it was indeed June 9th. 

But it was also a Wednesday.

Because Tuesday, June 9th, 20XX was… _a year ago_.

* * *

In the next sixteen hours, Enishi Satoru confirmed two things:

Firstly, in terms of events, this was an exact replica of the past. While June 9th, 20XX was not a particularly important date for Enishi, both the Dark Zone Branch and Company were definitely working on the same projects last June. 

Secondly, no one else seemed to be a time anomaly. Enishi originally assumed that this would have affected anyone who entered the Stride Gate, but Shinonome, Moriyama, and even Myoujin himself seemed to be operating exactly the same as they had last year.

Enishi did not know what to make of this.

Perhaps this was the universe giving him a second chance, allowing him to make amends before he committed greater sins.

Or on the other hand, maybe this was the universe’s way of punishing him, by handing him the lone responsibility of preventing all the destruction to come.

He had still yet to process the enormity of his situation when he ran into Chouno Am, seventeen hours after a phone alarm changed his life.

She was leaning against a hallway wall, playing with her phone. A large duffel bag sat beside her.

This was... highly unusual behaviour from the strict and regimented Chouno Am that Enishi knew.

(Or rather, used to know.)

Nor could Enishi recall ever finding her like this a year ago, but he supposed that since he couldn’t remember where exactly he was at this time on Tuesday, June 9th, 20XX, this may just be a coincidence.

“Chouno, what are you doing?”

Am looked up, pocketed her phone, and gave Enishi a bright smile.

“Hello, Enishi-san! I’m quitting.”

Wait.

Wait, what?

This - 

This wasn’t the right place for this to happen.

The first time, he had found Am loitering around the door. Enishi could at least remember that much of the moment that had arguably sown the seeds that changed his entire worldview.

“...I’m sorry, you’re what?”

“Quitting,” Am repeated, “leaving Company. No longer being the Peacemaker candidate. Severing my ties to Myoujin Ryuzu for good.”

This… also wasn’t what Am had said the last time, was it?

“I see.”

There was a pause.

Am tilted her head, as if waiting for something more.

Right, because there should be something more, shouldn’t there?

The Enishi Satoru that Am knew would not be able to let her go just like this.

Yet, was he still that Enishi Satoru?

Did he still want to be that Enishi Satoru?

(No, that wasn’t what his Vanguard was about. Not anymore.)

“Enishi-san?”

Am’s prompting startled Enishi out of his thoughts.

“Enishi-san, are you alright?”

“Yes, yes I’m fine,” Enishi answered, trying to gather his words.

Am slowly nodded, looking a bit confused.

“So…?”

“I understand, Chouno. You’re free to leave.”

Am’s eyes widened.

“What?”

“You’re free to leave.”

Enishi didn’t think that he had seen genuine shock on Am’s face since the first time she walked out of Company, one long year ago.

“You’re not going to try and stop me?”

“No, you’re free to do what you desire.”

“Even though I’m the Peacemaker?”

“In spite of that, yes.”

Am, if nothing else, looked even more mystified.

“...you know that I’m not going on an undercover mission or anything like that, right? I’m actually, genuinely, leaving Company.”

Oh, that was... a strangely specific statement.

“Yes, I understand that you are leaving and have no plans to return. You may do as you wish, even if that means betraying Myoujin-shi.”

Am gave him a scrutinizing look.

“Okay,” she muttered, almost to herself, “okay. Okay, cool. I guess I’ll just… casually leave then. Thank you, Enishi-san.”

With that, she picked up her duffel bag almost robotically. Enishi watched as she slowly took a few steps down the hallway, before pausing.

Am slowly turned around, face was expressionless.

“Actually, Enishi-san, one last thing.”

Enishi motioned for her to continue.

“Hypothetically - just, _purely_ hypothetically, if you ever came across a gray tabby cat, what would you name it?”

What? Why would - 

Oh.

_Oh._

Enishi met her even gaze head on.

“I would consider the name ‘Clover’.”

They stared at each other for a moment longer, before Am dropped her duffel bag with a sudden thump.

“Okay,” she muttered again, still not breaking eye contact with Enishi, “okay, okay, okay, that’s - ”

She opened her mouth, and then closed it again.

“Cool, cool. Let me just…”

Am’s hand went to her jacket pocket.

“Let me just go make a call real quick.”

* * *

The apartment was small, but chaotic.

After a 23-minute-long phone conversation of rapid and emphatic whispering, Am had brought him across the city to an old, shabby apartment complex in the heart of the Dragon Empire Branch’s zone. 

She dragged him in front of a seemingly ordinary unit and knocked on the door. 

They were almost immediately greeted with the sight of Kiba Shion and Anjou Tokoha.

The two teens ushered Am and himself into the cramped room, where Shindou Chrono, Yumizuki Luna, and Asukawa Taiyou were sitting around a battered coffee table.

(Ah, this was starting to make both a surprising amount of sense and absolutely no sense.)

Anjou Tokoha grabbed a cushion for Enishi to sit on while Yumizuki Luna poured him a glass of water.

With that, Enishi was promptly sat down on one side of the table and thoroughly interrogated.

(Kiba Shion’s eyes were _terrifying._ )

He was asked about every last detail he could remember about the previous timeline, his motivations leading up to and within the Stride Gate, and everything in between.

When there were finally no more questions, the six stared at him in silence for a few moments.

Then, the room exploded.

“You’re telling me” Anjou exclaimed, “that maybe, just _maybe_ , all we had to do this entire time was just convince all of Company to stop being evil? And _that’s it_?”

“But Taiyou, didn’t you already try that with Hiroki-kun?” Yumizuki asked.

“Maybe that wasn’t a genuine conversion?” Asukawa suggested, “or maybe there’s a specific order that we have to go in? Enishi-san seems to have come to a conclusion on his own, whereas we always just sort of dragged Hiroki-kun into all this, so maybe that has something to do with it?”

“Right,” Anjou added, “and we still don’t know if Enishi-san is going to keep looping or if this was a one-time deal, and if converting every Arbiter will even get us anywhere beyond an even more boring Stride Gate every loop, so there’s that.”

“Actually, I think this actually might be the solution,” mused Yumizuki, “because I know we’ve talked about this before, but why have I been here from the start? I was technically part of Company in the original Stride Gate, but I still looped with you all. Maybe it’s because I never truly wanted to be on Myoujin’s side in the first place.”

The room fell silent for a moment of consideration.

“Huh, that actually does make sense,” Anjou concluded.

Shindou sighed, before turning to Am.

“What I’d like to know is how Am fought Branch Chief Enishi so many times without realizing that she accidentally converted him. How are you smart enough to pick up on the fact that he might have looped within a 2-minute conversation, but also blind enough to miss the fact that you were casually reforming a villain?”

Am threw her hands up in the air.

“I don’t know, I just thought that he was trying to capture me and bring me back to Company because we all know that he tries to do that every once in a while. But then, that Fight before the G Quests has never happened before. I thought that that was weird, but then when he called me into the warehouse about his spying theory, I thought that that was the end. Maybe we’d accidentally driven him insane again and he was just having some sort of existential crisis. I didn’t know that he had all but defected!”

“What do you mean? From the way Enishi put it, you were practically pressuring him to join you!”

“Well, I’ve been reflecting on my actions my whole life! Excuse me for giving coherent answers to the questions that I’ve been thinking about for the last few hundred years.”

“But still, ‘do what’s right?’ ‘I don’t think that’s what they would have wanted?’ You know Branch Chief Enishi’s backstory better than most of us, what were you even thinking?”

“I _wasn’t_ thinking, okay? It’s not like we were trying anything big in the last loop, so I just brushed it off as another random fluctuation in the timeline!”

“You know what,” Anjou commented, “that’s fair. We still have no idea what we did that one loop to convince Jaime that he should restart the Spanish Inquisition.”

“Then there was that time Kamui ran for Prime Minister. Of _Canada_ ,” Asukawa chimed in.

“And remember Ibuki’s emo rock band?” Yumizuki added.

“He was a surprisingly good singer,” Asukawa remarked.

Shindou sighed again.

“Fine, I guess weirder things have happened,” he acknowledged, “but wow, this was some coincidence.”

“For sure. It almost feels like there’s a logical reason behind all this madness, which is surprisingly concerning at this point,” Anjou agreed, before turning to the corner of the room, “Shion, you good? You’re being uncharacteristically quiet.”

The boy in question had been sitting with his hands steepled at his lips and hadn’t spoken a word since Enishi finished talking.

At Anjou’s statement, Kiba began chuckling, and then laughing hysterically.

He buried his face in his hands and shook with increasingly breathless laughter all the way until he was down to heaving breaths. He then looked up, blue eyes shining with mirthlessness.

“What do you want me to say, Tokoha? If we want to get out of this time loop, then I have to give Shinonome _goddamn_ Shouma a proper redemption arc.”

Anjou rounded her lips in an “oh” while Am gave the blond a consoling pat on the back.

“It’s okay, Shion, maybe all that intelligence means that he can be reasoned with for the greater good. If not, I mean, the gruesome deaths are satisfying too,” Am comforted.

Enishi blinked.

Uh.

Okay, sure.

Not that anything they had said in the last few minutes made any sense, but that - 

Moving on - 

“Oh, I totally forgot!” Anjou gasped, suddenly looking at Enishi.

The room’s attention was immediately back on Enishi.

“Before we forget, we should probably explain. So basically, we’ve been stuck in this one-year time loop between now and when the Stride Gate opens for… about 237 years now, I think? There are a few other rules and tidbits about that that I can explain later, but essentially, we haven’t found a single clue about how to get out of this until you came along!”

Enishi nodded faintly.

Sure.

Okay.

237 whole years.

...how were these children even sane?

(On second thought, that was a flawed question. They simply _weren’t._ )

“So yeah, welcome to the time loop gang, Enishi-san!”

“...thank you, Anjou.”

“Please, at this point, you’re one of us whether you like it or not. Just call me Tokoha.”

Enishi nodded again.

Tokoha smiled at him before humming and tapping her chin.

“Say, Enishi-san, what do you think would happen if we put rollerblades on a horse?”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Oh my god I can't believe I just finished my first chaptered fic, ever. Wow. (And LOL I will never write a conversion arc again, that was _insanely difficult_ , how do people make it look so easy?)
> 
> 1\. Thank you so much to the amazing Sage (AKA [manila_envelope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/manila_envelope)) for reading the first draft of this and providing me with really useful feedback! This chapter would definitely be so much worse without her. Make sure you check out her work!!
> 
> 2\. Come scream about time loops with me on my [very under-utilized tumblr](https://eclarius.tumblr.com).
> 
> 3\. Sage and I also have a [Discord server](https://discord.com/invite/Gx4EAW6r9u)! Come shout with us about random CFVG AUs and headcanons, the art of torturing characters for that _sweet angst_ , and learn why this time loop is arguably one of the _less_ chaotic ideas out there.
> 
> Thanks for reading and for all your support! I couldn't have done it without you all :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Memoirs Of Vangarou: Weakness is Not a Sin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26577583) by [disasterinbound](https://archiveofourown.org/users/disasterinbound/pseuds/disasterinbound)




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